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Tourtiére with Lavender

Piece of Tourtiere
Piece of Tourtiére Pie

Ingredients – Filling

  • 1 pound lean ground goat (can substitute beef or mixture of beef & pork)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon dried lavender
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground sage (or 6 leaves fresh sage – chopped)
  • ¼ cup fresh parsley chopped
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1 1/2 cup mashed potatoes
  • 1 cup chopped carrots
  • ½ cup peas

Ingredients – Pie Crust

If you have a favorite recipe for pie crust for a 9” pie – go for it. Otherwise here’s mine:

  • 1 ⅓ sticks of salted butter
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • around 6 tablespoons ice cold water (put water in a cup and float ice cubes in it until you’re ready to use it)

Directions

In a saucepan, combine olive oil, onions & garlic. Saute until they are starting to turn a little brown. You want just a little caramelization. Remove from pan and hold in a good sized bowl (you’ll be adding more later).
In the pan put in the ground meat and cook over medium heat until all the meat is gently cooked. When done, add to the bowl of onions and garlic.
Into the bowl add all the herbs and spices, as well as the peas, carrots, and mashed potatoes. Stir really well, so the potatoes are mixed in and hardly visible.
At this point you can refrigerate the mixture until you are ready to make the pie.

Make the pie crust

Preheat oven to 395 degrees F (200 degrees C).
The easy way: using a food processor, but the flour and salt into the food processor. Cut the butter into pats of about 1 tablespoon each and put in with the flour. Pulse the food processor a couple of times until the butter has been cut into bits – but don’t run it too much or it will be too finely chopped and you’ll sacrifice fluffiness of your crust. Then add about 5 or 6 tablespoons of water and pulse it again. You’re looking for the mixture to make larger beads than with just the butter. Don’t let it clump up into a ball but add water so it will make those beads. Then scoop about ⅔ of it out of the processing bowl, form it into a ball with your hands, and roll out the bottom crust. Put it in the pie pan, add the meat mixture. Then roll out the rest of the pie crust dough. Place top crust on top of pie and pinch edges to seal. Cut slits in top crust so steam can escape.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, check to see how it looks, and keep going until the crust is golden brown and there is a little brown on the bottom crust (if you can see it – we cook in glass pans). Let cool 10 minutes before slicing.

Serving it

It’s good to have some chutney, or Milepost 19’s Raspberry Mustard, yogurt, or other kinds of sweet things for people to use to dress it up at the table.

Bon Appétit!