When I was a child, this was made whenever my Roy relatives got together for Christmas. Christmas Eve, my Roy uncles and aunts (known sometimes as weird words such as "mononk ee matant" (of course I now know mon oncle et ma tante) would get together and play musical instruments all evening. Then the children would be put to bed. Along about 1 a.m., bells would be rung and the children awakened (I now know the adults sans one or two, would go to midnight mass). We'd jump up, because it meant Santa just left. We'd open gifts, and musical instruments would be brought out again, and carols would prevail. We'd all eat tourtiere and beets and drink eggnog (OK, OK, the adults were sipping from a communal glass of Canadian).
Many years later I started experimenting with recipes I have for tourtiere (including a French language Quebecoise cookbook, a real challenge to my high school French), and came up with this one (trying to make it lighter than the packed pork pies of my youth):
1 tube Jimmy Dean Sage sausage (because I often find it hard to get good pork ground to order)
1 lb white meat ground turkey
1 rib celery, chopped fine
1/2 to 1 onion (depends on size)
1 T rubbed sage
1/2 tsp thyme
1 clove garlic
Off to the side have:
1 c chicken or turkey broth
1/4 c instant potato flakes
pie crust of your choice (I'm no baker, I leave it to the little dough boy. If you make it yourself, brava, bravo!!)
chop and sautee (sweat, not brown) the celery & onion, then add the meat and garlic. When the meat is almost done, add the herbs. I've seldom felt the need using the above mentioned meats, but if you are using ground pork or fresh sausage from your grocers,at this point you may need to drain off some fat.
gradually add some of the stock, until everything is a little more than moist, then sprinkle on some potato flakes. stir these together adding one and or the other until you get a consistency that holds together but isn't pastey.
TASTE AS YOU GO. I haven't even mentioned salt and pepper, which you should be doing all along; lots of both, to taste (as soon as the pork is cooked, start tasting)
Fill the pie crust with the almost-set meat mixture, and cover with the top crust. Bake until the crust is brown (a half hour or so at 350).
More tourtiere tales to follow!!!!