Lac-Saint-Jean tourtiere (French Canadian meat and potato pie)
- Preparation 2 h
- Cooking 8 h
- Servings 8 to 10
- Freezing Absolutely
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🥧 Friends from the Lac tasted it, and they’re the ones who called it
Tourtiere is said toor-tee-YAIR, and if you have never had one, here is the short version: it is a French Canadian meat and potato pie, and this particular one comes from the Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec. I have no family ties up there. None at all. What I do have is friends from the Lac who ate this pie at my table and told me it was completely out of this world. Coming from them, that is worth a whole lot more than an invented family story.
🔪 Chunks of meat, never ground
This is the one thing that separates a Lac-Saint-Jean tourtiere from the tourtiere most people know. Pork shoulder, beef roast, duck confit and salted pork all go in diced, tossed with potatoes cut small. Nothing is ground. Nothing is browned first. Everything goes into the pot raw and sorts itself out while the oven does the work, turning into a filling that is closer to a covered stew than to a pie.
If ground meat is what you came for, my classic meat pie with beer is the one you want. Two very different dishes wearing the same name.
⏳ Eight hours, and I am not shortening it
One hour at 400 °F (200 °C) to set the bottom crust before it drinks the broth, then down, down again, and you leave it alone. The meat ends up falling apart in its own juices. It is long, I know. That length is exactly what produces a filling nobody manages to fake in three hours.
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🍲 The pot is where this gets won or lost
I used a big cast iron Dutch oven. A regular sturdy roasting pan works too. What absolutely will not work is a disposable aluminum pan. Three pounds of meat, a kilo of pastry and broth cooking for eight hours weighs a ton: you will blow the bottom out of the pan pulling it from the oven, and you will be genuinely upset about it.
💧 The broth goes in once
Enough to sit about half an inch under the meat, and then you leave it alone. You never add more partway through the bake.
🔥 300 °F and eight hours, on purpose
It looks like too much. That first hour at 400 °F (200 °C) does one job: it sets the bottom crust before the broth soaks into it, otherwise you end up with raw pastry underneath. Then 325 °F (160 °C) for three hours, with a single 180 degree rotation halfway. One rotation. Not three. Then 300 °F (150 °C) for two and a half hours, and the last hour and a half uncovered so the top can take on color.
How do you know when it is done? Trust the meat. After all that time in the oven, trust me, it is done.
🧂 About the salted herbs
I buy them. Store-bought jars are plenty good. Outside Quebec, a mix of chopped fresh parsley, chives and celery leaves with a pinch of salt gets you close.
⏱️ Marinating, only if you feel like it
My recipe says to hold the mixture in the fridge, with no set time, and I am perfectly happy with that. I find it excellent exactly as written. But if you want even more flavor, you can let the meat marinate 6 to 12 hours depending on how much time you have. A bonus, never a requirement.
🦌 Game meat works
I have never done it myself, but nothing about the recipe stops you: duck, wild boar, venison, goose. Just keep the balance between a lean meat and a fatty one, and leave the salted pork exactly where it is. That is what supplies the fat.
❄️ Keeping it and freezing it
It holds 3 to 5 days in the fridge. For the freezer, break it into pieces and freeze cooked portions: three months, no trouble. Reheat at 350 °F (180 °C), gently, never hot and fast.
One more thing. It comes out of the oven juicy, and that is normal. Want it creamier? Bake it the day before, let it cool a few hours, refrigerate overnight, then reheat 1 to 2 hours at 325 °F (160 °C) before serving. Honestly, it is better that way.
🍽️ What to serve with it
Same answer as my classic meat pie with beer: homemade fruit ketchup, homemade pickled beets, and pickles. That is the whole list. Nobody in Quebec puts a complicated salad next to a tourtiere. You want acidity to cut the fat, and nothing else.
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Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb (680 g) pork shoulder, well trimmed and diced
- 1 1/2 lb (680 g) beef roast (inside round), diced
- 280 g (about 10 oz, 2 legs) duck confit, shredded and chopped
- 150 g (5 oz) salted pork, diced
- 3 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced small
- 3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 large sweet onion, diced (or a large yellow onion)
- 1 cup (250 ml) light amber beer
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) salted herbs (herbes salées, a Quebec seasoning of herbs cured in salt, sold in jars)
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) herbes de Provence
- About 3 cups (750 ml) chicken broth
- 2.2 lb (1 kg) store-bought shortcrust pastry, divided into a 3/4 portion and a 1/4 portion
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Preparation
- In a very, very, VERY large bowl, add all ingredients except chicken broth and dough. Season with salt and pepper generously and toss well. Reserve in the fridge.
- Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C).
- On a floured work surface, take 3/4 of the pie dough and roll down to obtain a large crust of about 3-4 mm thick. Line the bottom and sides of a large casserole about 12 in (30 cm) long by 10 in (25 cm) wide. Roll down the rest of the dough to obtain another 3-4 mm thick crust and set aside.
- Pour the meat mixture into the bottom of the casserole then add enough chicken broth to have liquid 1/2 in (1 cm) under the meat. Cover with the remaining dough and form a chimney by cutting a hole in the center. Seal the edges of the pie. Cover with foil and make a hole where the chimney is.
- Place in the oven and cook for 1 hour. This will help to have a crispy inside crust!
- Reduce the temperature to 325 °F (160 °C) and continue cooking for 3 hours. Give a rotation of 180 degrees after 1 h 30.
- Reduce the temperature to 300 °F (150 °C) and continue cooking for 2 h 30.
- Remove the aluminum foil and continue cooking for about 1 h 30 or until the top crust is golden brown! Remove from the oven and let stand for 30 minutes before cutting and serving.
A regular tourtiere, the one served across Quebec at Christmas, is made with ground pork and beef in a standard pie plate and bakes in about an hour. The Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean version is a different animal: cubed meat and cubed potatoes packed into a deep pot, sealed under pastry, and baked for eight hours until everything collapses into itself. Same name, roughly the same country, completely different dish. My classic meat pie with beer is the ground-meat one.
Say it toor-tee-YAIR. The word comes from the tourtière, the deep-sided dish it was traditionally baked in, and there is no clean English translation. The closest description is meat and potato pie, or French Canadian meat pie. Most English menus just keep the French word.
Savory and deeply meaty, not spiced. This one carries no cinnamon, no cloves, no nutmeg, which surprises people who have only had the ground-meat version. The seasoning is salted herbs, thyme and herbes de Provence, and the flavor comes from four meats braising in their own juices with beer and broth for eight hours. Rich, a little fatty, closer to a beef stew baked inside pastry than to a spiced holiday pie.
Homemade fruit ketchup, and in most Quebec households it is not optional. Add pickled beets and whatever pickles you have. Acidity against fat, that is the whole idea.
Yes, and it freezes very well. Let it cool completely, break it into pieces, and freeze cooked portions for up to three months. Reheat gently at 350 °F (180 °C). A whole pie baked the day before goes back in at 325 °F (160 °C) for 1 to 2 hours, and it comes out creamier than it did the first time. In the fridge, it keeps 3 to 5 days.
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