A Slice of Canada

Holidays in Quebec (recipe here...)

Technorati: Food | photo | kevin d weeks | seriously good | tourtierre

Read more...

Toutièrre

Christmas Dinner



My parents won't drive at night, so if I want to have them over to my place for a meal it has to be lunch and on most holidays I end up going to their house. That's fine except it usually means I can only cook one or two things and they either have to be transportable or simple enough to prepare in an hour. So when I learned my sister was coming down for Christmas I insisted we have Christmas dinner here - driving at night isn't a problem for her so she could bring the folks.

We began our meal with champagne, a smoked trout and cheese spread, and a mushroom pâte my mother had made — and we opened gifts. It was a significantly bookish year gift-wise. But given we're all fanatic readers that worked. (Dad gave me Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat, which has been on my list for ages.) Then we had Christmas dinner.

Like everyone else, money is really tight for me right now so roast goose or prime rib were out.

Like everyone else, money is really tight for me right now so roast goose or prime rib were out. But this wasn't a huge problem as I've been wanting to make a traditional French Canadian (Quebecois) Christmas dish — Toutièrre. This is a savory meat pie made of pork and beef and it's not only extraordinarily good, but as you can see in the photo above it makes an impressive, albeit rustic, presentation.

To accompany it I sautéed kale with garlic and pork confit and made cauliflower puree. I've done cauliflower puree before but I ran across a recipe on Serious Eats that added shredded Parmigiano to the mix. For me, this was the surprise star. The cheese was an extraordinarily good complement to the cauliflower.

Inevitably, dessert was Bourbon Cake.

Tourtièrre
Serves 8 - 10.

pastry (see below)
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 lg onion — diced
3 cloves garlic — minced
2 tbls bacon grease or vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 c beef stock
3 ea medium potatoes — peeled and quartered
salt and pepper
1 ea egg
1 tsp milk

Make pastry and refrigerate (see below).

Boil potatoes until fork tender. Drain and cool.

Heat bacon grease or oil over medium high heat. Add beef, pork, onion, and garlic. Season with salt, pepper, and allspice. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring to cook evenly. Add beef broth, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Cool. Drain liquid and reserve.

Heat oven to 400F.

In a bowl, coarsely crumble potatoes with a fork and add meat mixture. Stir in enough of the reserved broth to thoroughly moisten mixture but no more.

Remove pastry from refrigerator and allow to warm up until top edges are pliable -- about 10 minutes. Fill pastry shell to within 1/2" of top. Moisten edges and lay on top crust and press to seal. Beat together egg and milk and brush pastry. Cut several slits in top and bake in middle of oven for 40 minutes or until top is golden brown.

Pastry

You can substitute shortening for the lard if you wish, but the lard really works in this recipe.

2 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
3/4 c cold lard
1/2 c cold butter
5 tbsp ice water

Thoroughly mix flour, salt, and pepper in a large bowl.

Add the lard and break up with your fingers until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse corn meal.

Add water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture clumps together. Use your hands to mix in the water.

Form two balls from the dough, one a bit larger than the other. Press the larger ball flat on a floured work surface and roll it out to form a circle. Line the inside of a 9" springform pan. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate.

Roll out second ball and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate.

On this occasion I made a mushroom sauce using red wine and veal demi-glace to go on the pie, but it isn't necessary.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | main dish | pot pie | savory pie | beef | pork

Read more...

Steak & Guinness Pie

A Pint and a Pie



I recently taught a class on English Pub Grub. In researching recipes for it I discovered that both hamburgers and, of all things, Buffalo Wings are standard pub fare these days as are the more expected Cornish Pasties and Fish and Chips. I wasn't surprised to find a number of Indian dishes on the menus — the British have become notorious for their love of Indian.

I started the class with Chicken Tikka Masala, which some claim is now the English National Dish. I don't know if that's true, but I did find it on several menus and it seemed like a good starter.

The pièce de resistance was the Steak and Guinness Pie.

Bangers and Mash is one of the more famous pub dishes, and although I couldn't find genuine bangers here in Knoxville some research showed that bangers are not particularly different from a mild Southern country sausage so I used country link sausage. Then I added horseradish to the mash (as a good English friend had taught me) and added onion gravy. I also made beer and cheddar soup at the suggestion of another British friend.

But the pièce de resistance was the Steak and Guinness Pie. Traditionally the dish is made in an ordinary pastry crust as a true pie or individual pies. But I took a note from Jamie Oliver and topped it with puff pastry. I'm going to have to make this again.

Steak & Guinness Pie
Serves 6.

1 lb sirloin steak — cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3 - 4 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 lg onion — cut into large dice
2 md carrots — peeled and cut into 1/4" rounds
1 lg stalk celery — cut into 1/4" half rounds
1 lg parsnip — peeled and cut into 1/4" rounds
1 tsp dried thyme
12 oz. Guinness
15 oz. can chopped tomatoes, drained (reserve liquid)
Salt and pepper
1 pkg puff pastry
1 egg

Generously season meat with salt and pepper, then toss with flour to coat.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Brown meat in two batches, reserving browned meat on a plate and adding a bit more oil if needed.

Reduce heat to medium and add more oil if needed. Add and onions and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent. Add carrots, celery, parsnips, and thyme. Cook, stirring frequently for five minutes. Add any remaining flour and cook another 2 minutes, stirring. Increase heat to high, add Guinness, and bring to a boil, deglazing pan, then add tomatoes and return meat to pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer gently for 30 minutes. If sauce is too thick add reserved tomato juice or water.

Cool filling to at least room temperature to minimize the pastry becoming soggy — better if you can chill it. And better yet if the filling can be refrigerated overnight, which allows the flavors to thoroughly meld.

Heat oven to 400F. Thaw pastry according to package directions.

Scoop the filling into a 2 quart casserole dish. Beat egg and brush edges of casserole with egg. Place the pastry over the dish, it should overlap, and lightly press edges to seal to casserole. Brush pastry with remaining egg and cut a couple of slits in the top to vent.

Bake in center of oven until the pastry is browned — about 40 minutes.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | pub food | casserole | english | pot pie | beef | main dish

Read more...

Steak & Mushroom Pie

Pie Happens



I pictured a mound of overlapping circles of golden-brown potatoes strewn with sprigs of green. Instead, I ended up with a single circle of potatoes surrounding a bird's nest of potato strips. Such are the uncertainties of creation.

This month Jeanne at CookSister is playing the role of hostess for the online event, Waiter, there's something in my... Pie!. WTSIM is an online event being conducted by Jeanne, Johanna of The Passionate Cook and Andrew at Spittoon Extra. Each month they pick a theme and invite bloggers to submit recipes — this month the theme is pies, either sweet or savory.

Four and twenty black birds, baked in a pie...

I have a deep-seated fondness for pies in almost any form, and recently published an article at Kitchen Window on NPR's Web site about pot pies. It was while reading about this version of WTSIM that I had my vision. I imagined a steak and mushroom pie, flavored with juniper and rosemary, and encased in a "pastry" of sliced potaoes — a twist on the English cottage pie.

I checked the rules and the only real restriction was that the pie had to be enclosed. No problem, I thought. I jotted down my ideas — a proto-recipe — and got to work.

In general the pie came together smoothly and much as I'd envisioned, with one exception. I underestimated the number of potatoes I'd need and at the end found I didn't have enough potato slices to cover the top. My solution was to rinse the peelings and cover the center with them. I knew they were thin enough to cook completely in the oven, but I didn't anticipate them curling up into light delicious potato chips — hence the birds nest in the center.

Steak and Mushroom Pie

3 ea md. Yukon gold potatoes
2 ea sm. carrots — cut into 1/2” dice
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb sirloin — sliced very thin and seasoned with salt and pepper
1/2 lb baby portabella mushrooms — sliced
1/2 ea lg. onion — diced
1/2 c cut, frozen Italian beans
1 tbsp juniper berries — crushed
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp fresh rosemary — minced
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 1/2 c beef stock
1/2 c red wine
3 tbsp butter — melted

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Peel (reserving peelings) and slice potatoes into 1/8 inch thick rounds. Add potatoes to water and cook until just tender — about 5 minutes. Scoop out potatoes and drain, reserving water. Bring pot back to a boil and toss in diced carrots. Cook until tender — about 10 minutes. Drain.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Brown sliced meat in two batches and save in the pot you cooked the potatoes and carrots in.

Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet and reduce heat to medium. Add mushrooms, onion, thyme, juniper, and minced rosemary to the skillet and cook until mushrooms have given up most of their liquid. Add mixture to steak.

Heat oven to 400F.

Pick the end pieces from the potatoes and mash — You need about 1/3 cup of mashed potatoes.

Deglaze skillet with wine and reduce by half. Add stock and reduce by 1/3. Stir in mashed potatoes. Add to meat mixture along with carrots and frozen beans. Mix thoroughly.

Line a pie plate with overlapping slices of potato. Add meat mixture to pie. Cover outside edge of the pie with overlapping slices of potatoes. Rinse and dry about hlf the potatoe peelings and layer those over the center. Drizzle potatoes and peelings with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Strip the leaves from the sprig of rosemary and sprinkle over the top.

Cook on the middle rack of the oven for 35 - 45 minutes until lightly browned.

Technorati: Food | recipe | pot pie | savory pie | | wtsim | waiter there's something in my

Read more...

Tourtierre

Acadiana



Here in the US the cuisine of Louisiana holds an esteemed place in our food culture. Like jazz, we regard Creole and Cajun cooking as American inventions. And, in fact, like jazz the cuisine is inimitably American, made up of many elements both brought on ships and found in this country.

If you imagine Cajun and Creole cuisine as describing a culinary arc from the country cooking of the bayou to the high cuisine of the city, the keystone in the arc is French and, although the French certainly had a direct influence, much of that stone was formed in Canada by the Acadians who were subsequently forced to flee to Louisiana and put their stamp on both haut and bas cuisine.

My direct experience with French Canadian food is limited to a week I spent in Quebec while hitchhiking across Canada at 18. I was picked up outside of Boston by two young construction workers headed home to Quebec for the weekend. They invited me home with them and I ended up spending the weekend there. Their mother made crepes spread with homemade jam for our dinner that first night. I'd never had crepes before.

The second night we had a beef pot pie. Having grown up eating frozen Swanson pot pies, the huge opulent pastry was a revelation. But I was young and chasing something (myself, dreams, acceptance?) across a continent and I quickly forgot about the meal.

Then one afternoon years later I was reading the latest issue of either Bon Appetit or Gourmet and found a recipe for something called Tourtierre. As I read the recipe I remembered that extraordinary pot pie I'd eaten in a small house in Quebec so long before. This is my take on Tourtierre.

This makes a single large pie such as I had in Quebec and suitable for a family meal. I usually make smaller individual pies and freeze them -- beats the hell out of Swanson. Serves 10.

Tourtierre

pastry (see below)
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 lg onion -- diced
3 cloves garlic -- minced
2 tbls bacon grease or vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 c beef stock
3 ea medium potatoes -- peeled and quartered
salt and pepper to taste
1 ea egg -- for egg wash
1 tsp milk -- for egg wash

Make pastry and refrigerate (see below).

Boil potatoes until fork tender. Drain and cool.

In a large sauté pan, heat bacon grease or oil over medium high heat. Add beef, pork, onion, and garlic. Season with salt, pepper, cloves, and allspice. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring to cook evenly. Add beef broth, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Cool. Drain liquid and reserve.

Heat oven to 400F.

In a bowl, coarsely crumble potatoes with a fork and stir the stir in meat mixture. Add enough of the reserved liquid to thouroughly moisten mixture.

Whisk together egg and milk.

Remove pastry from refrigerator and allow to warm up until top edges are pliable -- about 10 minutes. Fill pastry shell to within 1/2" of top. Moisten edges with egg wash and lay on top crust, fold down edges and press to seal. Brush pastry with egg wash. Cut several slits in top and bake in middle of oven for 40 minutes or until top is golden brown.

Pastry
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 c cold lard
1/2 c cold butter
5 tbsp ice water

Thoroughly mix flour and salt in a food processor.

Add approximately 1/2 the lard and pulse quickly a couple of times. Add remaining lard and pulse quickly a couple of times. Add butter, and pulse for 8 - 10 one-second bursts until the mixture is the consistency of a coarse corn meal.

Dump mixture in a large bowl, with 3 tablespoons of water, and toss with your hands. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons of water and use your hands to mix in the water.

Form two balls from the dough, one a bit larger than the other. Press the smaller ball flat on a floured work surface and roll it out to form a rough circle. Using an 8" springform pan as a template, cut the circle to size of pan. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate. Line the inside of an 8" springform pan. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate.

Roll out second ball and line the inside of the springform pan, trimmimg off pastry that over laps the top. Cover pan with plastic and refrigerate. If you wish, cut out designs in scrap dough and refrigerate.

I made mushroom gravy for it, but that's unnecessary, the pie is plenty moist as is.

Technorati: Food | recipe | main dish | pot pie | beef | pork

Read more...