Tourtière with Homemade Ketchup

Tourtière is a Québécois (French Canadian) meat pie traditionally served at Christmas. I'm not actually sure where I ate it but I remember having it regularly as a child. I'm guessing at daycare or else, it was store bought, because we definitely never made it at home. I have been craving tourtière since last year. My sister talked about making it for Christmas but she ended up making an Asian influenced meal instead. You need a crowd to make it since it is a whole pie and it is a colder weather dish; Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect opportunity. When I told my sister of my plans, she stated that I should make homemade ketchup to go along with it. She's a bossy one! The tourtière was quite easy to make and everyone enjoyed it. The ketchup was also easy but I thought rather labour intensive.



Homemade Ketchup - makes 1 cup
From Jamie at Home.
The original recipe requires putting the ketchup through a sieve twice. Once was enough for me - this was the step I thought labour and time intensive. I also skipped the cloves because I didn't have any. Add some if you like. My sister thought it was good because it tasted like... ketchup! So is this worthwhile if it tastes like the store-bought stuff? Well, if you're worried about ingredients (which are really not that bad, the weirdest one being liquid sugar), sure. If I made this again, I would add more chili to make it spicier and more interesting.



* ½ large red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
* ¼ bulb of fennel, trimmed and roughly chopped
* ½ stick of celery, trimmed and roughly chopped
* olive oil
* ½ thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
* 1 clove of garlic, peeled and sliced
* 1 fresh red chili, deseeded and finely chopped
* ½ bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked, stalks chopped
* 1-½ tsp coriander seeds
* salt and pepper, to taste
* 1 lb cherry or plum tomatoes, diced roughly
* ¼ cup red wine vinegar
* 2-½ tbsp brown sugar

Heat up the olive oil in a saucepan.
Place all the vegetables, ginger, garlic, chili, basil stalks and coriander seeds into the pan.
Season with salt and pepper.
Cook gently over low heat for 10-15 min until the vegetables have softened, stirring every so often.
Add the tomatoes and ¾ cups of cold water.
Bring to boil and simmer gently until the sauce reduces by half.
Add basil leaves, then purée sauce in a food processor.
Push the sauce through a sieve with the back of a spoon.
Place sauce into a clean pan and add vinegar and sugar.
Turn on the heat and simmer until it reduces and thickens to consistency of tomato ketchup. At this point, adjust the seasoning to taste.


All of the ingredients that went into the ketchup.


Putting it through a sieve was a pain.

Tourtière - Serves 6-8
As I mentioned above, this was very easy and quick to make. My sister's fiancé D made pie dough from scratch but you could just use store-bought pie dough. I think any mixture of ground meats can be used, but traditionally pork is used. I bought a tray of beef, veal and pork, and added more pork to it. Again, I didn't have cloves but the recipe did call for it.



* oil
* 1 onion, diced very small
* 1 garlic clove
* 200 g ground beef
* 200 g ground veal
* 400 g ground pork
* 1 potato, grated
* ½ tsp ground cinnamon
* ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
* thyme leaves from 5-6 sprigs, or to taste
* salt, to taste
* ground pepper, to taste
* 2 pie doughs, homemade or store-bought
* 1 egg yolk
* 1 tbsp milk

Heat up oil in a large pan.
Cook onions and garlic until softened.
Add all of the ground meat and all of the spices.
Season with salt and pepper.
Break the meat apart until cooked.
When the meat is cooked and any liquid has evaporated, turn off the heat.
Taste and adjust seasoning.

Mix in the grated potato and let the mixture cool.
Place one pie dough into a 9" pie pan.
Add the meat mixture on top, using a fork to even out the surface.
Roll the second pie dough on top and pinch the edges of the crust to seal.
Cut some slits or a hole in the middle, to allow the meat to steam.
Mix the milk and egg yolk together, and brush the top of the pie with it (oops, we forgot this step).
Bake in the oven at 400F for 10 minutes.
Decrease the temperature to 350F and bake for another 20 minutes.
Tada!


Ok, ground meat does not look appealing but it tasted good, I swear!

Everyone really enjoyed this dish. My sister liked it even better than the turkey and had seconds! I can't wait for another occasion to make it again.

For the rest of the Thanksgiving Menu:
* Mushroom Soup
* Turkey Breast Stuffed with Pancetta & Chestnut Stuffing
* Martha Stewart's Cranberry-Orange Sauce
* Roasted Carnival Squash
* Pumpkin Fritters served with ice cream