Traditional Tourtière & All Butter Pastry

Ahh, this thing was a masterpiece! I was inspired to make tourtière (pronounced tort-ee-AIR) for the first time this year in honour of Canada Day. My family on my paternal grandmother’s side is French Canadian, having arrived in Quebec in the 1690s. French Canadian cooking is the ultimate comfort food, I think—Quebec winters are bloody cold and it seems that even summer doesn’t last very long. Traditional dishes like split pea soup, maple syrup pie, tourtière, sugar pie, butter tarts, and all manner of other pastries and stick-to-your-bones baked goods and meats are actually pretty easy to cook, and I have plans on attempting a few other newer French Canadian treats too—croissants and bagels. Mm.

At its heart though, tourtière is a simple mince meat (usually pork) pie with some unique spicing; cinnamon and cloves. I grew up thinking this combination was absolutely normal, since that’s how dad always made hamburgers—turns out it’s a throwback to his Montreal upbringing.

The Australians to whom I served this thought it was fantastic, so I guess it goes to show that a delicious meat pie is going to be appreciated in any culture.

Also take note that I’ve used a new recipe for pastry—an all-butter one from Smitten Kitchen. I do quite love my basic pastry recipe, but it requires a few more ingredients and requires a careful hand. This all-butter pastry is very quick, ever-so-flaky, and hard to screw up! (And got compliments from boys who could care less about these things. Just sayin’.)

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Edited: July 10th, 2011

Strawberry Rhubarb Galette

I’ve been having a strange, overwhelming craving for rhubarb recently. Maybe it has something to do with spring in Australia, or maybe I simply haven’t met my quota for it in the last 12 months. Whatever the reason, when I saw that it was in season again at the fruit market, I veritably pounced upon it and proudly carried my bunches of rhubarb home.

I contemplated a few different recipes in which to worship my newfound rhubarb, but nothing sounded quite as appealing as the basic and always delicious strawberry and rhubarb combination. Really, you just can’t go wrong with it! And as my pie dish has mysteriously vanished into the unknown (?), and as I was dying to try Deb at Smitten Kitchen‘s galette dough recipe again (it’s so freaking good!), a galette it was!

If you’re daunted by the challenge which is often pie making, or just can’t quite seem to get the hang of a basic pie pastry (it can be a bit tricky), I definitely recommend taking a stab at making galettes. The dough is far more forgiving, you don’t need a pie plate (grumble), and their charm is far more rustic and relaxed than the “can she bake a cherry pie” stigma. The best part is that they can be savory and sweet! I pinky swear to post more galette recipes in the future too, so you better get practising!

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Edited: November 25th, 2010

Spinach Cheese Tart

I really wish that life had more recipes like this in it. Or rather, that I could eat more recipes like this in my life. It’s awesome and horrible sometimes having an athlete boyfriend—he can eat everything he wants, and so can all of his friends! (Though I can’t complain too much, because for a few months he’s got to keep on weight for regattas, and then in comparison I get to eat whatever I want.) The good thing is that he has friends who can eat whatever they want too, so I occasionally get to make really decadent dinners.

This spinach cheese tart is inspired by Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home, but is well and truly adapted by yours truly to hopefully fit ingredients that you’ll actually have in your fridge. I have it listed as ‘moderate’ but truly, there’s little you could do to screw this up. Anything smooshed between puff pastry and generous amounts of cheese will taste good, I promise! You could mix up this basic method by using different sorts of vegetable combinations (mushrooms, spinach, and sundried tomatoes?), different meats, or really whatever you can concoct. Enjoy!

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Edited: October 13th, 2010

French Canadian Maple Syrup Pie

I’m going to make a bold claim here: I think that maple syrup is as good as chocolate. (Gasp! Shock! Horror! Disbelief!) And much like chocolate, it’s really only worth having if it’s the good stuff. My grandmother’s family on my dad’s side has been in Canada since the 1690s, meaning that they were some of the first French settlers in Canada. Three hundred years is more than enough time to develop a unique cuisine, and the French Canadians really know their maple syrup, pies, and other tummy-warming dishes for cold nights (just you wait for my dad’s split pea soup!).

I’m not entirely sure where this recipe came from, but my dad’s scribbled note at the bottom of it says, “This resembles what my grandmother Latour made often.” And this woman… I never met my great grandmother Latour, but I’ve heard the stories of their large Catholic family gatherings on holidays, and my dad’s recollection of the sheer number of pies has me reeling. Maple, pumpkin, chocolate, apple, cherry, so on and so forth—if I ever end up being half the cook that woman was, nay, a quarter, I’ll count myself proud.

So here you go. One authentic, French Canadian maple syrup pie. I’ve included a link for some well-priced maple syrup at the bottom of the post for you Canadians or Americans. The irony is that (good) maple syrup is the same price and the same brands in Australia as what you can get in western Canada.

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Edited: August 9th, 2010