There was a long line at the meat case this Saturday at the grocery store and I was standing with the crowd. I enjoyed asking everyone in line how they make ‘their’ Tortiere pie. I was in the company of experts - it’s a serious subject in Maine.
Tortiere is a meat and potato pie seasoned with sweet spices, similar in flavor and texture to a coarse country pate but made with potatoes as the binding agent instead of fatback and Tortiere is enrobed in a double crust.
One cute older couple told me they were making 20 pies. She told me, “we have the time to make tortiere pies for our family - they are too busy to make it for themselves.” It is the season to make Tortiere pie. It’s a French Canadian treasured recipe and tradition and everyone makes it differently.
Some will only make it with a lard crust - I save my saturated fat calories for something more spectacular. Some sweet little old gray haired ladies insist that the only way to properly make the filling is with finely minced meats, hand done. My family, meaning my mother’s side of the family always made it with ground pork and beef, equal weights. I make my pie with a butter crust - I am a ‘no lard or Crisco’ chick.
It is a pretty simple pie to make: combine the 2 ground meats, a pound each of pork and beef. I like a lot of onions in mine just like my mother. Add a cup and a half of chopped onions to the ground meat over low heat. I always add a ½ cup of water to the pot to make the meats and onion cook evenly. Once the meat has lost its pink color, it is done. The final addition is 1½ cups of hot mashed potatoes and 1½ teaspoons of allspice, stirring in mashed potatoes give the filling body, that means the potatoes hold the ground meat together. Salt and pepper to taste. Hint: it needs more salt than you’d expect or it tastes flat when it is served.
Chill the filling and prepare the double crust. My simple crust: 2 cups flour, 1teaspoon salt, 2 sticks butter and ½ ice cold water. Cut the butter into the flour and salt. I make my pie crust in a food processor and never let the butter pieces get any smaller then a ½ inch. Add the water all at once and it’s done. The chilling part is the whole key to good piecrust. Overnight refrigeration will mend any overworking of the dough, known as evil gluten development.
Now for the fun - roll out half the pie dough and place it in a 9-inch pie plate. Spoon in the cold meat filling and place a top crust on and crimp away. Now for the other most important thing: Cut vents in the top crust to let out all the steam as the meat mixture heats up. I use kitchen scissors. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes until the pie is a pleasing golden brown.
A meat pie must cool before you cut it or it will crumble. That’s what my mother always said so I pass that along BUT a piece of meat pie that is still hot from the oven and a bit crumbly sounds just perfect to me!
Brenda Athanus runs a small gourmet food shop in Belgrade Lakes, Maine with her sister Tanya called the Green Spot.
The Green Spot
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