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.

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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

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