Yes, my crummy camera focused on the pickles instead of the tourtiere meat pie. Oh well. It was still very tasty.

Around here it's pronounced too-chay, but I've also heard it pronounced tour-tee-air elsewhere. It is an Acadian/St. John Valley French/Quebecois French tradition. Place these meat pies in the oven, go to midnight (Catholic) mass, come home and have a very late supper to start off Christmas at 1am. Our family tradition is to have it Christmas Eve.

No two families usually have the same “recipe.” Something unusual occurred when my folks met. Both family's "recipes" were close enough to each other to call them the same. In portions of the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec, the meat of choice in tourtiere is salmon. You see that here alongside tourtiere, except its called salmon pie. Most tourtiere pies around here are a mixture of beef, pork, potatoes, and onions. Our family recipe is a 2:2:2:1 ratio of those (2 portions each of beef, pork and potatoes to one portion of onion. There is no real "recipe". It's more of a technique passed down from generation to generation.

My family's recipe starts by cooking both a pork and a beef roast in the same roasting pan until well done. As the beef will shrink more than the pork make sure the beef roast is about 20% larger than the pork roast when you start to ensure you wind-up with roughly the same proportions of both meats. Pour off but save the jus.

Now set-up your antique #3 Universal meat grinder. I purchased mine at a church rummage sale. Grind your meats. Measure how much of each you have. Grind half that much onion. For example if you have 4 cups of each meat, grind enough onion to make two cups. Make enough plain mashed potatoes to match your meat proportion. Truly plain as in boil the potatoes until they are soft, drain, and mash them. No salt/pepper, no butter, no nothing added. Just the potatoes.

Mix the above in your roasting pan (you’ll need something that large). To the above proportions (2 beef to 2 pork to 2 potato to 1 onion) add 1 cup of jus, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, and (in our family) a tablespoon of Bell’s poultry seasoning. This is a New England brand spice blend of rosemary, oregano, sage, ginger, marjoram, thyme and pepper, which I listed out in case you can't find it locally. Mix thoroughly with your hands. Taste and feel. If it feels dry, add a little more jus. If the spice mixture doesn’t taste right adjust accordingly. Again, it’s more technique than exact recipe. I know some families add a little allspice to this.

When you make this mixture this way, you’re making a whole heap of pies, not just one. When I do this, I usually wind-up with enough filling for 5 to 6 pies.

Roll out a standard pastry crust (or buy one from the store). Lay the crust in your pie pan. Add the meat filling, packing it in until it's level with the pie lip. Place your second crust on top. Crimp edges. If not cooking right away, wrap in plastic wrap, then foil and toss in the freezer for later. This one is a “left-over” from last year’s pie making. If you freeze it, thaw it completely in the fridge before baking.

Pre-heat oven to 350F/176C. Lightly brush your crust with milk and bake for an hour.

Normally, (in our family) tourtiere is served with assorted cheese and pickles (aka a "relish tray"). That orange stuff is butternut squash. I saw one in the fridge that needed using and it has about the same bake time as the tourtiere.