Mamie Gleason’s Tourtiere – French Canadian Meat Pies

The French Canadian Meat Pie has been a family tradition of the Gleasons, handed down many generations. It is a favorite as a uniquely satisfying comfort food.

Mamie’s recipe has been highly guarded so we are tickled that she has offered to share this recipe with Simply Fresh. Up until now, only family members were allowed the recipe.

Prior to Christmas, many of Mamie’s children and in-laws schedule meat pie night for making up to 15 pies at a time. The young children love to participate (except for chopping the onions – then they seem to disappear!) and decorate the crusts with artistic creativity and snow scenes. These pies freeze and store wonderfully and are gifts to close friends at Christmas. Mamie’s meat pie is the center stage of our Gleason family Christmas Eve and night of scrumptious appetizers. Mamie’s grandchildren have grown up with meat pies and it’s always a big hit any night in the winter.

I love having several frozen meat pies ready to go in the winter, when we can spontaneously invite friends or family over and not have to do more than put one in the oven.

The French Canadian Meat pie dates back to the time when the French migrated to Quebec and Northern Ontario.The spices and use of salt pork helped preserve the meat and flavor when there was no automatic indoor refrigeration.This recipe does not call for salt pork, but Mamie recalls when she was a young girl living in Deseronto, Ontario., Mamie’s mother, Helena Therrien kept a salt barrel in the basement that contained half of a pig.Winters were extremely cold and usually well below freezing.The salt/ brine barrel and cold preserved the meat.

While searching on line there are numerous and varied meat pie recipes.If you have a favorite meat pie recipe or memory we would love to hear from you!  You can share your recipe at [email protected]

Ingredients:Note this recipe below is for thin standard 9” pie.I prefer 1.25 pounds meat per standard pie tin and adjust spices and bread accordingly.If you prefer a deep dish then use 1.5 pounds meat per pie. You can have a super pie with 2 pounds and have more servings. This is very dense and can be served in small slices once it cools a bit. The fresher the spices the more flavor or increase the amounts for older spices.We love spices and use a pinch more than called for here.

·½ pound ground sirloin

·½pound ground lean pork

The following is per pound of meat

·1 cup well chopped onion

·1 clove minced garlic

·½ tsp salt

·¼ tsp cloves: go easy, very strong

·¼ tsp celery salt

·¼ tsp cinnamon

·½ cup water

·¾ cup bread crumbs (your favorite bread dried and cubed or buy.If the crumbs are finely crushed in a can use less)

·Top and bottom pastry crust.(Mamie prefers lard crust, but I use Pillsbury or store equivalent with great results)

Place all ingredients except for bread crumbs and crust in a large soup pot and bring to a low simmer.Do not brown this meat.Continue to simmer 20 minutes, remove from heat and add bread crumbs.

Top with pie crust, trim crust 1 inch around edge allowing one inch excess to crimp bottom and top together.Cut slits in top of pie crust to vent or get creative and add a snowman or other pie art.The kids love this part.

If baking today:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes until crust lightly browns.Protect pie crust edges with tinfoilor use a pie crust shield.

FREEZING:This pies freeze marvelously in gallon size freezer zip lock bags.They can go from the freezer to the oven.If frozen, bake at 400 for 1 ¼ hours or until lightly browned.

Enjoy with your favorite cranberry sauce.We make it from fresh cranberries.The standard recipe on the bag uses 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar.We use half the sugar for a nice tart sauce.

Recipe:  Mamie Gleason

Written by: Jane Gleason

Photography: Jane Gleason