In order to establish some Christmas traditions of our own, I thought it would be nice to bring in a traditional French-Canadian Christmas and New Years favorite, Tourtière. Sometimes called pâté à la viande or meat pie, tourtières are not without controversy. There are so many different variations on this theme that it's hard to distinguish what is a poseur recipe. I even did some research going into the CBC archives. One expert says that what is basic to French-Canadian cuisine is the seasoning of meat with spices, mainly cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, all-spice.

I thought I would try a pie closer to the Saguenay type consisting of cubed meat and in a deep-dish pan. Apparently that's closely related to the French tourte. My choice was really based on what I had at hand, which was pork loin and deep-dish pie pans.

I think the last time I made a tourtière, I was in grade 7 and it was a project for French class. However the last time I made a pie was at Thanksgiving, so I thought it was do-able.

For the crust, I used a variation of the New York Times All-butter Pie Crust from November 15, 2006. My variations being, using whole-wheat pastry flour and using a 50% lard, 50% butter mixture. Yes, I used lard since I was making a savoury pork pie. Shortening works too, but I find it not quite as flavourful and the crust isn't as crispy. Nothing says crispy like rendered animal fat.

Pie Crust (enough for deep dish pie(bottom and top))

2 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour (whole wheat to compensate for the lard and pastry flour, bec. there's less gluten and so less stickiness)
½ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into ½ inch pieces (I used Whole Foods 365 butter which was just as fat as Plugra, but not as fat as Celles sur Belle)
10 tablespoons lard, chilled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
4 to 10 tablespoons ice water

1. Sift flour, add salt. Stir/whisk together. Add butter and lard. Using 2 butter knives cut butter and lard until mixture forms chickpea-size pieces. Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, and mix until mixture is just moist enough to hold together.

2. Form dough into a 2 balls, wrap with plastic and flatten each ball into a disk. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before using. I usually freeze my dough overnight and pull it out an hour before I use it.

I chilled my flour while I was measuring my butter and lard.

I also have a rolling pin that is made out of aluminum that I chill prior to rolling my pie dough. It's called The Pin. I find it works very well.

So why the cold? I was taught that cold keeps the fat solid so that when it's baked the fat melts leaving a nice "pocket" creating a crispy/flakey crust.

To roll the dough: I lightly flour the counter. I place a piece of plastic wrap on the dough and slow roll out the dough working out from the middle. Once my dough is flat enough(5-6 millimetres thick), I wrap the dough very gently around the rolling pin. Then I slowly lift it over the pie pan and unfurl the dough.

The Filling
1 tbsp Olive Oil
½ Large White Onion Finely Chopped(approx. 1 cup)
2 lbs Pork Loin - Chopped into small pieces (not an exact thing but each piece is approximately a 1 centimetre(1/4 inch) cube)
Small piece of Salt Pork finely chopped(approx. 1 tbsp)
2 Stalks of Celery with leaves Finely Chopped
2 tbsp of Parsley Fresh or dried
4 Small Russet Potatoes Finely Chopped
1 Cup Water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp Herbes de Provence(I bought mine at Whole Foods and it's a mixture of basil, sage, rosemary, savoury, thyme, lavender. I used this, because I wasn't able to find savoury on it's own)
2 Bay Leaves
½ tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Cloves (whole, ground with mortar/pestle)
½ tsp All-spice (whole, ground with mortar/pestle)
½ tsp Nutmeg (freshly grated)

Heat pan(I used my cast-iron pan) on medium heat. Add olive oil. Add onions and salt pork. Fry till onions are translucent.

Add pork with salt, spices, bayleaves. Stirring occassionally till pork is cooked. Add potatoes, celery, parsley, and water. Cover and let simmer till potatoes are cooked. Uncover and simmer till there is very little liquid, but still moist. Remove from heat, cool.

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Put filling in pie crust. Slit the top of pie crust, making vents.

Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 F and bake for 40-50 mins being careful that crust does not burn, but browns very nicely. Cool on rack.

My crust was a little "rustic", but I didn't want it to be perfect looking. However I was very happy with the flakiness. I also prefer the chopped meat to ground meat of other tourtières I've had.

I served it with a homemade banana pepper relish that I make with hot banana peppers, honey, and mustard seeds and a variation of Nigella Lawson's Insalata di Rinforzo. Chutney would work well as well. I suppose in honour of living in Pittsburgh, we should eat it with Heinz ketchup.