Tortures of Tourtiere

Tourtiere is  a fancy French word for meat pie, commonly eaten on Christmas Eve in many a Quebecois home.   It is usually made with a blend of ground beef and pork, onions, perhaps garlic and always with sage, thyme, and sometimes cloves.   Mom often made meat pies for our family in our younger years.  I’m pretty sure she always used ground beef.  It was a favourite of my dad’s, enjoyed  hot or cold, always tasty and delicious.

Throw any old piece of meat at me and I can come up with a tasty dish.  But, there’s a part of cooking that I’ve never mastered.  The ubiquitous pie crust.  Now, having said that, the truth is I’ve probably made a pie crust four times – in my life.  And every time I entertained the notion that I’d like to make a pie, it usually ended in a less than optimum experience for me and for those who sat at my table.

Never let it be said that I give up easily.  I’d been thinking about making a meat pie for a few weeks now; the picture perfect crust, with swirls of steam rising up through the slits in the top, smelling up my kitchen with the scent of sage and garlic. 

I visited my local butcher and picked up fresh ground pork for the filling. After discussing the merits of home baking, I purchased the pure white lard that he renders down himself.  He and his wife have provided our family with wonderful cuts of meat for 25 years now.  I trusted him when he said this was perfect lard for pies while trying not to stare at his rather large, pear shaped body and apple dumpling cheeks.

 Four or five cook books later, I decided on the perfect pie crust recipe.  How hard can this be?  There are only 4 ingredients.  A piece of cake.  Well, you know what I mean.  I took out my beautiful, old, pottery bowl, the one that  Brian’s grandmother used,  hoping that some of her pie making skills would still be hovering round.  I felt I needed all the help I could get.  With a silent prayer to the pastry chef up above, I measured out my flour, salt and lard. 

 I felt quite exuberant when the lard cut beautifully into the flour and created those perfect little pea-shaped  bits of joy that my recipe book stated would make the perfect pie crust.  Sprinkle the flour-shortening mix with ice cold water  and mix lightly with a fork.  Form into a ball.  OK.  Done.  They say it’s easier to work with cold dough, so I put half the dough in the fridge while I rolled out the bottom crust.

 Now, here’s where everything got shot to hell.  When I patted and tried to press down the ball of dough in preparation for the rolling pin – it shattered into a mess of little pieces of dough.  I can remember mom’s voice in my ear “Barbara, the less handling, the better”.   By this time, my shoulders were so tense you could have hit me with a tennis ball, and it would have bounced off with no impression.  My breathing was audible, and I was starting to hyperventilate.  No worries.  Calm down.  I decided to throw caution to the winds.  I added a bit more lard, (this was not going to be a healthy dinner anyway, so what difference a few more artery-clogging fats?)  The dough seemed to work a bit better, and after I added a few more drops of cold water, I actually had kind of a pie crust going on – it wasn’t round and it had a lot of thin and sometimes missing pieces, but hey, after I scraped it off the counter (yeah, I know – use flour), and threw it onto the pie plate, it didn’t look so bad.  Of course, I had to patch up a few places – well,  who’s kidding who, I created the whole friggin’ pie crust like a jigsaw puzzle with bits and pieces tacked on here and there.   Voila!   Once I poured my beautiful pork mixture over it, the whole thing almost resembled a pie!   With one episode under my belt, I felt confident, assured -  scared.  The second rolling out worked much better.  At least it didn’t crumble like an old dusty brick wall when I repeated the rolling pin scenario.  I worked quickly and efficiently, rolling out just enough to lay over the meat.  I pieced and patched as above, praying that once cooked, it would all miraculously meld together.   In the oven it went and then I turned and looked at my kitchen.  Who knew that 2 cups of flour could spread so far?  There was flour on the counter, the mixing bowl, the utensils, the floor, my elbows.  Was there any left in the pie?

The pie sits cooling on the wire rack.   It looks pretty good -  from a distance.  After a bit, I muster up my courage and cut into it.  The crust is quite flaky though the filling appears to be somewhat dry.    After my third bite, I decide the crust is quite good – certainly better than anything I’ve bought in a store – however, the meat filling is not spicy enough and too dry for my taste. 

No one is more surprised than I am.  Here, I was expecting the crust to be my failure and it turns out the meat was.  Next time I will add more spice and liquid to the filling.  Yes, I said next time.  Who knows, I just might become the tourtiere expert in my little corner of the world.  In the meantime, I’ll serve this dry pie with mashed squash and a fresh, crunchy salad.  I don’t expect I'll get any complaints from the farmer.  And I didn’t. 

This Old House

Some might think that living in an 1860 log house in the country would be idyllic, and they’d be half right.  It’s true that these thick log walls can withstand the strongest winds and fiercest storms with nary a sound to be heard inside.  We, the occupants, have to put up with the small, chopped up rooms, the bathroom addition that can get so cold that it can be quite painful to jump into the shower on a winter’s morning.  We don’t dilly dally.  The floor drops precariously downhill in the dining room and on those rare occasions when we eat in there, we seat the taller folks at the low end of the table - seriously. Our grandsons like to bowl in this room as the ball always rolls downhill and they’re assured of a strike or at least a spare.  The temperature varies in each room, depending on the direction of the wind, whether the woodstove is  going, or if it’s sunny or raining out.  The sun room is glorious on a sunny, fall day – but look out come sundown - so, we move around a lot.  Sometimes when it’s damp outside, the old house gives off a musty, old wood smell which can be unpleasant at times.   That’s when I light the woodstove, put on a pot of soup, or chili and before you know it, it smells wonderful in here. That’s what I did today. 

Brian and I don’t often work together in the kitchen, it’s always been my domain, but he wanted to use up some of the apples from our old apple tree.   I absolutely do not have the patience to work with those little apples; by the time all the blemishes and the little worm holes are cut away, there’s not much left, but he painstakingly peeled, sliced and trimmed until he had enough for a pie.   It just so happened that I was in the process of making chili at the same time, so I worked from my centre island, and he used the kitchen table to prepare his pie.  Quite harmoniously, I might add. 

While he was working at the table, I was busy cooking up the ground beef, onions, garlic, celery, peppers, mushrooms and zuchinni.   Chili is so much fun to prepare.  It’s basically layering meat and vegetables, beans and spices until you’re satisfied with the results.  I never make it the same way twice, but it always tastes fine, especially when reheated on the second day. Today,  I tossed in a jalapeno pepper  and I added a bunch of kale.   A really neat trick I learned recently was how to chop up kale.  After washing the kale to remove any dust or bugs,(I missed a tiny caterpillar last time – he became my first cryogenic experiment and, sorry to say,  did not come back to life once he thawed) -  just place in a large freezer bag and toss in the freezer.  Once frozen, all you have to do is crunch up the bag with your hands and all the kale falls off the stems.  Throw away the stems and you have a lovely bag of chopped up kale, ready to throw in soups or omelettes or chili. 

Brian had finished his pie preparation and was just about to throw away the rest of the custard that didn’t fit in the pie when I suggested cooking it in a saucepan on the stove.  After just a couple of minutes, we had a lovely custard to enjoy.  Mmmm.  There are benefits to collaborating in the kitchen.  I could get used to this. 

The old house seems to enjoy the warmth, the aroma coming from the baking pie in the oven, the chili bubbling on the woodstove.  It holds memories of 100 years and more of farm families working together, enjoying and sharing the food grown on their land, in rhythm with the seasons.  Brian's off to do his outside work, whatever that may be, (maybe he's found a soft place to nap up in the haymow - I never ask), while I sit indoors on this sunny but cold autumn day, enjoying how the tree's branches whip back and forth in the wind, while the leaves blow in frantic circles on the lawn.  This old house, though aging and imperfect, remains stalwart, comforting.  This place is home.