Cliquez ici pour la version française

Acadian Tourtière

Recipe courtesy of Bernice Roy

Tourtière could be the most classic of Canadian dishes. Each French-Canadian family has their recipe, whether they live in Québec, Acadia, Ontario, or even New England. Tourtière is almost always part of Christmas or New Year's Eve supper.

The word “tourtière” is a generic one that simply refers to any “pâté en croûte”, or pâté cooked in a crust. Classic tourtière usually includes pork, veal or ground beef, and potatoes. That said, there is a wide variety of tourtière fillings. Some include wild game, or even fish.

Here is an Acadian version from New Brunswick.

Makes 12 tourtières.

Homemade pie crust:

• 454 g all-purpose flour

• 454 g pastry flour

• 454 g shortening

• ¼ cup butter

• 1¼ cup cold water

In three different pots, place each meat with onion and garlic, plus salt and pepper to taste. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Once it is boiling, lower the temperature and simmer until the meat is tender and cooked (about 40 to 50 minutes).

Let the three meats stand, each in its own juice. Once cooled slightly, remove the skin and bones from the chicken and shred the chicken with a fork.

Mix the three meats together with their juices, making sure to incorporate the onions and garlic. Mix well to have a homogeneous mixture of meat in each pie.

Note: if there is too much juice, keep it aside as you may need it later (to add to the pies).

Roll out the dough and cover the bottom of the pie pans. Fill the pie pans with the meat mixture (with juice so that they are not dry) and cover with dough.

To eat the tourtière immediately, bake in the oven at 350°F for 30 to 45 minutes.

To freeze the tourtières, wait until they are cold and put them in freezer bags or use a vacuum sealer.

It is important to cook the tourtières from frozen; do no defrost to cook!

Bake at 350°F for about an hour.