Fresh From My Kitchen: Tourtiere

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Tourtiere

A favorite recipe from my mother-in-law, Margaret Guthrie. Traditionally served at Christmas-time. I love the blend of spices and the way the house smells when it is cooking. For years I thought this was an old family recipe -- and I guess now it is, but I learned many years later that it was not, and I think, originally from Bon Apetit magazine. Anyway, it is so good, and has been a Guthrie tradition for longer than I have been in the family!

Filling Ingredients:

2 cups chopped onion

1-1/2 ground sirloin

1- 14 oz. can whole tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped celery leaves

1 Tbsp. finely chopped garlic

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. thyme

1/4 tsp each nutmeg, mace, ground pepper, ground cloves

2 tsp cornstarch

1 chicken bouillon dissolved in 1/2 cup water

1/4 cup chopped parsley

Filling Directions:

Brown meat, onion, garlic. Add tomatoes and break up. Add celery, salt, thyme, nutmeg, mace, cloves, ground pepper. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 30 minutes (**) until most of moisture has evaporated and mixture is quite dry. Dissolve cornstarch in bouillon and stir into meat. Cook until mixture thickens (about 2 minutes). Add chopped parsley. Set aside and roll out cough for crust.

** Make Dough while the meat cooks (there is a top and bottom crust). Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Dough Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

6 Tbsp. cold butter (original ingredients said chilled oleo)

6 Tbsp. cold shortening

1/3 cup ice water

1 egg beaten (for brushing on the crust before baking)

Dough Directions:

Mix together flour and salt. Cut shortening and butter into flour mixture until butter is pea-sized. Add ice water slowly and mix with fork until dough holds mostly together. Gather dough into plastic wrap and refrigerate until the meat mixture is cooked and ready to be used as filling. When ready, divide the dough in half. On a floured surface, roll out the dough for the bottom crust. Gently line the pie plate with the rolled out dough. Roll out the other half of the dough. Fill the the bottom crust in the pie plate with all of the meat mixture. Cover with the rolled out top half of dough. Trim excess dough around edges, press the top edge of the dough to the bottom dough, I roll the edges of the dough under first, then crimp decoratively. Brush crust with 1 beaten egg. Cut slits in the top decoratively to vent.