Tourtière is a traditional French-Canadian dish served by generations of French-Canadian families all year long throughout Canada and the bordering areas of the United States. I spent a large part of my growing up years in Buffalo, NY and anyone who has ever been there knows that region to be quite close to Canada. In fact, I have walked across the border many times (back in the day when you could do that). There is no one correct filling so you will find all different traditional recipes. This just happens to be my favorite - super yummy - version (note corningware instead of pie pan - I am in love with corningware).
But let me backtrack because I am guessing that most of you have never made a tourtière before. Am I right? Which is why you are going to find super detailed instructions below. Super-duper detailed, because when I read the directions for making a multi-step dish I tend to get confused as well. But when it comes right down to it, if you want to have something super yummy and meaty and pie crusty... you need to make this. It is worth it. You will have to make this to believe me though because the directions look intimidating. I get it.
And to get at the heart of the matter, let me tell you why I even thought to make this complicated dish at right now in my life. You see, after having this baby (baby number three is coming in June) I want to have a lot of things in my freezer that are actually really yummy to eat. This is one of those things that you can make a big batch of and then be delighted to snatch out of the depths of the freezer when you are hungry and tired (both of which I'm sure I will be). So make it and eat it. Make it and freeze it. Make it and eat some and freeze some more. Whatever way you choose to go about it, just make it. You and your family will thank me. Which of course you can leave in the comment section below (it makes me happy).
And to get at the heart of the matter, let me tell you why I even thought to make this complicated dish at right now in my life. You see, after having this baby (baby number three is coming in June) I want to have a lot of things in my freezer that are actually really yummy to eat. This is one of those things that you can make a big batch of and then be delighted to snatch out of the depths of the freezer when you are hungry and tired (both of which I'm sure I will be). So make it and eat it. Make it and freeze it. Make it and eat some and freeze some more. Whatever way you choose to go about it, just make it. You and your family will thank me. Which of course you can leave in the comment section below (it makes me happy).
Tourtière du Mommi
Crust Ingredients (scratch pie crust - double batch)
• 5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting surfaces, dipping fork
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 4 sticks unsalted butter, very cold
• 1 cup water, very cold
Crust Preparation
• Follow directions for making my scratch pie crust, remembering that you need to make it at least an hour ahead so that it has time to chill. You will end up with 4 wrapped flattened balls of dough (but if you know you are doing the freezer recipe I suggest you divide the dough into 6 balls instead to make it easier later). I usually do this whole step the day before.
Crockpot Ingredients
• 3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1 (16 ounce) bottle white cooking wine
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 medium onion, quartered
• 2 garlic clove, chopped
• 10 whole black peppercorns
• 10 sprigs thyme
• 4 bay leaves
Crockpot Preparation
• Cut pork into 2 inch pieces and place in crock pot. Add, wine, stock, onion, garlic, whole black peppercorns, thyme and bay leaves.
• Turn crock pot to high and cook for 4 hours (or low for 6 hours).
Filling Ingredients
• 1 medium onion, chopped,
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 (8 ounce) package mushrooms, finely chopped
• 3 cups grated, peeled russet potato
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
Filling Preparation
• Transfer pork shoulder to a work surface. Shred meat with your fingers and transfer to a medium bowl. Strain pan juices through a fine-mesh sieve; add 1 cup juices to pork; discard solids in strainer.
• Pour remaining juice into sauce pan and reduce down to about 1/4 cup.
• Add onion, garlic, mushrooms and potatoes to large nonstick pan and pour olive oil over everything. Cook on medium heat until browned, about 15 minutes. Add cinnamon, cloves, pepper, salt and cook about 5 minutes more to combine flavors.
• Remove from heat. Stir in shredded pork with juices as well as the extra juices you just reduced.
• Chill until cold, about 1 hour.
Final Assembly Ingredients
• all-purpose flour
• 2 large egg yolks, beaten
• 2 tablespoons water
Final Assembly
• Roll out 1 dough disk on a lightly floured surface into a 12" round.
• Transfer to pie dish (or corningware), leaving overhang.
• Fill with 1/2 of the cooled meat mixture.
• Roll out second dough disk into a 10" round.
• Place dough over meat filling. Fold overhang over top crust and crimp edges.
• Brush crust with egg yolk, beaten together with water.
• Cut decorative slits in top crust and chill for 1 hour.
• Repeat for the second tourtière.
The Bake:
• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• Bake tourtière for 30 minutes.
• Reduce heat to 350°F; bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling, 40-50 minutes.
• Let cool for 20 minutes before serving.
Note: Pie crust takes only a few minutes to mix up, crock ingredients only take a few minutes to toss in, cooking up the filling takes about an hour (between shredding the pork, chopping everything up and cooking it together), and assembling takes about 1/2 an hour to roll out crust and put in filling. Then the bake is about an hour but only takes a second to throw in the oven. So really it takes about an hour and a half of "work" but there is a LOT of down time between all the different steps (about 1/2 a day of downtime). I suggest doing the crust and the crock on one day, making the filling and assembling on the next. That is how I do it to keep things simple.
Freezer Instructions: To prepare this for your freezer this is what you are going to want to do. Get yourself one package of disposable 8 inch loaf pans (3 in a package). Assemble them according to instructions above (just use 1/3 of your crust recipe in each loaf pan and 1/3 of the meat mixture). Cut slits in the top crust, but do not brush them with egg yolk. Then just slide each loaf pan into a gallon freezer bag before placing in the freezer. When it comes time to bake them, you can defrost the day before in the refrigerator or just put them directly in the oven (remembering to brush them with egg yolk to get a nice looking crust). If you are cooking them frozen, you are going to want to cover the top of the crust so that it does not burn before the tourtière is hot and increase the baking time. Uncover the top for the last 30 minutes of cooking to get a nice golden crust.
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