My brother haunts the non-touristy end of Robson Street for its array of Japanese and Korean dining options. A week and a half ago, he happened across the soft open of Ramen Santouka, the newest of the chain of ramen shops originally based out of Hokkaido and starting to make its conquest of North America.

The restaurant decor is peppered with bears – the symbol of Hokkaido, according to my brother

Soft open / grand opening signage and tasty, tasty visual menu

Even if he hadn’t already eaten at Ramen Santouka during his last trip to Hokkaido, the place still would have captured his attention. The storefront, while modest in signage and obscured by a bus stop, has an arresting display in the front window of what one could eat inside its doors. It would have been enough for this curious diner to try it without further recommendation; I imagine the descriptions and visuals would interest a ramen neophyte as well.

My brother stepped inside for his first Vancouver taste of Santouka’s shio ramen. One slurp was enough to sell him on a second visit in the same week – another positive experience which led him to suggest Santouka for lunch the next time he and I hung out. He tried the shoyu ramen and the cha-su don while I wasted no time in ordering the most unusual items on the menu: the kara miso ramen and ikura don. Our picks were conveniently available as ramen/don combos for $11 and $13. Gotta love a place that makes sampling this easy.

Kara miso ramen: spicy tonkotsu broth flavoured with chili oil and miso

Ikura don: rice bowl topped with salmon roe and thin shreds of scrambled egg

Shoyu ramen: tonkotsu base flavoured with soy

Cha-shu don: rice bowl topped with slowly simmered pork

Yum, yum, yum! Easily the best tonkotsu I’ve had in Vancouver. The regular pork in our ramen was already so superb in tenderness, marble, and rich flavour that it’s gotten me drooling in anticipation for the premium pork jowl of the toroniku ramen that I will no doubt order upon my return.

A few observations: 1 slice of pork in my bowl and the default portion size were not enough to appease my normally peckish appetite, and certain items on the menu were not yet available for order. I recommend immediately upgrading your bowl to the large portion and requesting extra pork when you visit. Don’t let the limitations in the current menu stop you from coming down to eat there, as food lovers in the know and Santouka fans happy to see its presence in Vancouver are already causing a formidable line-up during service peak times. Oh, and don’t forget your cash – no debit or credit cards accepted yet.

This is a promising ramen find for me. As for my brother – who isn’t wild about Kintaro and who prefers the likes of Motomachi – he has found a new favourite in Santouka. He’s even posted photos and rave one-line reviews of his Santouka meals on his Facebook profile without telling his friends where to find the place. Tease.

Chow Times and La Petite Vancouver can give you more detailed accounts of this newcomer to Vancouver’s ramen scene, so read about their dining experiences if you aren’t already en route to Ramen Santouka.

Joe Fortes and its Pacific Kiss Platter

Paula from the BC Shellfish Growers Association (BCSGA) emailed me last week about a BC oyster sampler that Monk McQueens and Joe Fortes were offering for the duration of the Olympics. As I hadn’t applied for accreditation for the Games, I missed the official media tasting. But that was fine with me – at an affordable $25, I was able to make a lunch reservation at Joe Fortes and experience this Pacific Kiss platter as a normal diner.

Armed with a handy trifold showing the map and tasting notes above, I slurped my way across 12 regions of BC oysters, with almost all of them on or neighbouring Vancouver Island. Amongst my favourites were the smaller varieties: the Kusshi, the Pacific Rim Petites, and the Effingham. Clear winner for me was the larger Fanny Bay oyster, pictured below. Guess there is a reason this baby is popular at my other oyster haunt, Rodney’s Oyster House.

Service at Joe Fortes was terrific. The hostesses reserved us a table by the Oyster Bar that allowed room for a stroller and our server gave tasting glasses of the wines we were trying to decide between.

We also witnessed her cater to a table of tourists with a Pacific Kiss platter. She returned to said table with 12 cleansed shells – now souvenirs for their niece’s shell collection. It was funny to note at the time, as I had mentioned to my friend at how tempted I was to take home the aesthetically pleasing exterior of my Chef’s Creek oyster (above).

Joe Fortes Seafood & Chop House
777 Thurlow St | Downtown Vancouver
(604) 669-1940

Alpha’s Olympic lunch combos

My five-year love affair with Alpha is well documented, but one long-standing complaint is that they’re not open for lunch. I literally squealed with delight when they told me at one evening that they were offering lunch service during the Winter Games: 1-4pm Wednesday through Sunday until Feb 28th. We made reservations for lunch the next day, where I just had to order the $20.10 Olympic Combo, featuring three kinds of sushi and sashimi, mackerel, meatball stew, fish cakes, and other goodies. Next time I’ll try the $18 Vancouver Combo: chicken kara-age, breaded ebi mayo, pumpkin croquettes, three kinds of sushi, tuna garlic pepper and more.

Again, the stroller containing the little one was welcome during this less frenzied meal time, and our servers gushed over her newness as we ate.

If you are a fan of Alpha’s dinner menu, you won’t be disappointed at how many of the regular items are still available at lunch time. The only glaring omissions (to the chagrin of my lunch date) are the Grilled Toro Pork and the Miso Teriyaki Beef.

Alpha Global Sushi & Bar
1099 Richards St | Yaletown
(604) 633-0355

Hapa Izakaya’s Olympic lunch menu

Yaletown’s newest izakaya entrant normally has post-5pm service, but they similarly decided to be open for lunch during the Olympics. 11am-2pm Sunday through Thursday, for them.

Unlike the wide selection they have during regular service, Hapa’s lunch menu tallies at six mains. It wasn’t a problem for my dining companion, who had ordered the $12 tekka donburi combo like I had, but if you have a discerning palate you may be disappointed by the limited choice during the day.

If, however, you come equipped with a baby in a carrier or stroller – like I have on several occasions, both lunch and dinner – be assured that your family will not be turned away. Even if a Canada hockey game is on and you have to navigate said stroller to the back booth through a sea of people belting out our national anthem.

One word of warning: don’t come here if you are avoiding restaurants that have added auto gratuities for the Olympics. Hapa Yaletown has an 18% rate. I for one have had consistently attentive service at this location worth at least 18%, so I don’t mind. But you might.

Hapa Izakaya
1193 Hamilton Street | Yaletown
(604) 681-4272

]]> http://tinybites.ca/2010/02/22/a-trio-of-baby-friendly-lunch-spots-during-the-vancouver-2010-olympic-winter-games/feed/ 0 http://tinybites.ca/2010/02/09/twelfth-annual-gung-haggis-fat-choy-dinner-at-floata/ http://tinybites.ca/2010/02/09/twelfth-annual-gung-haggis-fat-choy-dinner-at-floata/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:00:53 +0000 Bruce Nguyen http://tinybites.ca/?p=4372 Mosaic.

Growing up a young immigrant in Canada, ‘mosaic’ was the catch phrase my school teachers would use to define the country’s cultural landscape. Mosaic; by proudly juxtaposing different cultures, my adopted country would create an altogether new composite Canadian identity.

I’m still skeptical on the extent of it all in reality, but what’s clear is with today’s popularity of the california roll, Japadog, and ninja turtles, cultural borrowing and fusion has become rather commonplace. However, I can’t remember when it’s ever been as explicit and downright fun as Gung Haggis Fat Choy.

We even covered the event live on twitter. Missed our live tweets? You can catch up on the conversation here

The event

A portmanteau of the traditional Cantonese new year greeting and that prototypical Scottish sausage, Gung Haggis Fat Choy combines Chinese New Year with Robbie Burns Day to create a new composite celebration of song, poetry readings, and food in order to celebrate the two heritages and raise funds for various charities.

This year marked the event’s twelfth year running and, with over four hundred attendees to this year’s dinner, the costumes, bagpipes, and sing-a-longs were in full swing.

Hosted by “Toddish McWong” and Tricia Collins, the night started with a full bagpipe band, transitioned to poetry readings, both original works and those from Burns, and just kept going from there.

Audience participation was encouraged, with sing-a-longs of “When Asian/Scottish/Chirish Eyes are Smiling” – yes, “Chirish ” – and echoing along with a rap version of Burns’ “Address to the Haggis”.

The menu

The drink list consisted of a variety of Scotch whiskies and Chinese beers. Wines were available too, but understandably none from Scotland or China.

Hosted by Floata Seafood Restaurant, the menu would sound familiar to anybody who has been to a Chinese wedding banquet, with a few key differences of course:

• Appetizer plate of haggis siu mai, BBQ pork, jellyfish, and turnip cakes
• Deep-fried haggis wontons
• Mixed vegetables and winter melon soup
• Haggis lettuce wrap with diced vegetables
• Pan-fried prawns with spicy salt (shell in)
• Peking style gold coined beef
• Buddha’s Feast vegetables with deep fried tofu
• Deep fried crispy chicken
• Vegetarian fried rice
• Coconut or mango rice pudding

The Deep fried haggis wontons being a clear stand-out. In fact, I personally loved all the haggis infused dishes served this night. Yes, I know what haggis is. But I grew up eating chicken feet, tripe, and Hot vit lon / Balut (readers with tender stomachs, do not click that link).

Haggis? No problem, and really very pleasantly savoury.

‘Good food and good fun’ sums up our experiences at this year’s Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner; I’m sure we’ll be back next year.

To learn more about Gung Haggis Fat Choy: The Robbie Burns / Chinese New Year event, visit their website here.

“Why does the old world have terroir and we just have varietal wines?” Le Clos Jordanne’s winemaker Thomas Bachelder asked at a recent Terminal City Club tasting.  “It’s not fair.”

Sampling five wines – all from 2006 but from various vineyards – he walked us through the different regions and vineyards and illustrated how much terroir comes into play even for Canadian regions. Le Clos Jordanne is situated on a 400km limestone bench stretching around the lake and into the USA.  It has a landscape perfectly suited to wine and the proprietors recognized this, starting the winery with a terroir experiment.

Le Clos Jordanne is a joint venture between Vincor and Domaine Boisset from Burgundy. The idea was to start a winery completely from scratch in the burgundy tradition and try to capture the characteristics of the Niagara Peninsula area around the village of Jordan.

There are four vineyards: Talon, La Petite, Claystone and Le Clos. Village Reserve comes from all four; La Petite is so small it can only be used for the reserve and the La Petite Pinot Noir. The Claystone and Le Clos grapes contribute to both pinot noir and chardonnay.

This is a careful, deliberate operation. The yields are so low that they have to net the vines or the birds would eat everything. Then the grapes are hand-picked and hand-sorted to eliminate rot. The exacting methods pay off, however. These are top-notch Niagara wines, and they’re now available in BC.

All of the wines we tasted are the same vintage (2006) and the same grapes (pinot noir and chardonnay) in order to better  find the characteristic expressions in the wine. Starting off with the Village Reserve Pinot Noir, we tasted blackberry and floral notes. This is almost a perfumey wine with the characteristics of all vineyards mingling happily. In contrast is the Claystone Pinot Noir which comes from the western, “best part” of Claystone. Thomas Bachelder has determined that the tough minerality of this area is most representative of Claystone.

Finally, the Grand Clos Pinot Noir takes the best grapes from all four vineyards and the result is both delicate and bold. Karen of WineBard.ca detects citrus and she’s right: in there with the red fruit is a bit of tangerine. Paired with the pinots were a Fraser Valley duck breast on potato cakes, five spice beef tempura on potato puree and bruschetta that brought out the richness of the wines.

The two whites we tasted, Claystone Chardonnay and Grand Clos Chardonnay, were sipped in conjunction with preserved lemon risotto, seared scallop with sunchoke tureen, and chardonnay-poached lobster with black truffle chip. Again, the differences between the single vineyard and the Grand Clos were evident. Claystone is hard and tight, yet elegant. It has a soft palate and the sweetness of the wine is enhanced by the food. The Grand Clos has a rich, lemony essence to it, slightly mineral and utterly mind-blowing.

I’m not normally a fan of chardonnays but both of these are gorgeous and rich – completely unlike any other American chards. I will be buying both again without a doubt.

Ocean Wise is a Vancouver Aquarium conservation program that identifies sustainable seafood choices for restaurants and suppliers and makes it easy for diners and consumers to make ethical choices. Just look for the Ocean Wise icon on menus. They’ve been at it for 5 years without any funding (the Vancouver Aquarium is footing the bill) and have gotten almost 300 partners onto the program in that time. This year they also achieved national reach accross Canada.

Our dinearound started at the aquarium where we raised a glass to all that they’ve accomplished before being whisked away to surprise dinner destinations dependent on the colour of pre-assigned ribbons.

Like a bus full of kids on a field trip we shouted out possibilities each time the bus turned a corner: “Nook! L’Altro Buca!” as we spun through the West End, then “Grouse Mountain!” as we headed over the Lion’s Gate bridge. When we stopped in front of the Edge Bistro (3135 Edgemont Blvd.) in Edgemont Village, we all discovered a delightful locale new to all of us.

The Edge

At the Edge we had plump BC mussels in a coconut curry broth followed by a decadent pecan-encrusted salmon stuffed with shrimp and Dungeness crab. Chef Robert Clark of C Restaurant was dining with our group and explained that BC mussels have a much higher meat-to-shell ratio than PEI mussels – a helpful fact we lamented as we became more and more full over the course of the evening. We washed these dishes down with a Pacific Breeze chardonnay from New Westminister and their smoky, spicy Killer Cab then it was back on the bus to head to stop #2.

Hotel Vancouver

We were more familiar with this property but no less surprised when the bus pulled up in front of the Hotel Vancouver. Here we were seated at the back bar of Griffins and served gorgeously plated bites starting with the beet-cured salmon crêpe pictured above, paired with the fresh apple Nk’Mip Riesling. Next was a mini niçoise salad with quail egg, caviar, green bean, tuna sashimi and olive tapenade. Paired with the Quail’s Gate gewürztraminer, this dish was fresh and clever and perfectly executed.

As for hot dishes, there was a smoked sablefish with crisp pancetta and greens accompanied by a Hugues le Juste pinot noir and a seared Arctic char on apple beignet with Granville Island Lager foam and apple-sherry vinegar reduction.

A custom cocktail from the bar, “The Torch” (red pepper, grapefruit, and ruby vodka) finished it all off nicely.

C Restaurant

But no, we weren’t done yet: there was still the finale at C Restaurant. As Chef Robert Clark didn’t like the idea of being the first guests to the party, we nipped into Nu for a cocktail from the carousel bar.

At C, we had another taste of Ocean Wise seafood in the form of a huge Baynes Sound (Denman Island) scallop and Denman Island herring with various forms of pea shoots. The wine for this dish was a beautiful 1998 Selbach-Oster, Reisling, Zeltinger Sonnenuhr that was just the right acidity to balance the oil of the fish.

And then finally – finally! – it was time for dessert – Salt Spring Island Goat Cheese and Vanilla Mousse with stone fruit preserved and spiced liquid marshmallow. It was a not overly sweet dessert which allowed for a pairing of not one but two dessert wines; Forbidden Fruit’s “iced apple dessert wine” and Vista d’oro’s delicious fortified port style wine with walnut brandy. It was a sweet end to an entirely sweet evening.

Finishing up there was time to thank our gracious hosts and congratulate them again on making Ocean Wise what it is today. We also had an opportunity to compare notes with the other buses and their dining experiences. In addition to the restaurants listed here, Aria, Burrard Bridge Marine Bar and Grill, the District, Fraiche, Revel Room, Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company, Tapenade Bistro, and Zen participated. It was great to see the range of restaurants with sustainable Ocean Wise choices available, from high end hotels to casual neighbourhood spots. Check out the complete list of restaurants and partners and show your support.

Our little bundle of joy came into the world at 5:32pm on Friday, January 15th. Now that we’re back from a weekend stay at the hospital after a complicated labour, we are in the throes of new parent bliss as she entertains us, strains us, and keeps us on our toes.

Being a human food factory is more exhausting than being a human incubator, so you will likely not hear directly from me in the next 6-10 weeks as I recover from surgery and focus on my daughter. However, I’m confident that Degan and Bruce will have plenty of content to keep you busy, since Bruce just got back from Argentina and Antarctica and Degan’s been out and about at the events that Team Tiny Bites gets wind of.

If you actually do want to hear about mommyhood and such, visit Flickr for photos and Twitter as @karenhamilton. I may also post from time to time on my personal blog.

Hope your new year has started as memorably as ours has!

This is the third post in a three-part travel series called Bruce eats New York, where Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen chronicles his ‘New York virgin’ dining experiences during the summer of 2009.

1. Fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar
2. Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)
3. From cheesecake to yogurt and everything in between

New York is home to some of the most upscale restaurants in the world but it can also be done on a budget. After all, the foods that bear the city’s name include the bagel, the pizza, and the cheesecake. Speaking of which, let me first state that the advertised “World’s largest cheesecake” really wasn’t all that large.

Below is a selection of tasting notes from the rest of the trip.

Ippudo

Ramen – very tender slices of pork. Noodles were well textured and not overdone. The decadence of eating ramen with what is more ladle than a spoon has to be experienced. Still, it was the pork belly cutlets which really shone. And that’s saying a lot.

Friends appreciated the ramen here more than at that at Momofuku Noodle Bar.

Ippudo
65 4th Avenue | East Village, New York
(212) 388-0088

Cafe Fiorello

Cafe Fiorello was recommended by the same trusted hotel concierge that recommended Ippudo, so our a group of twelve met there with promises of some of the best pizza in town.

Meal post-mortem: preference still leans towards properly prepared Chicago style deep dish pizza. Maybe I just need to try a non-white-tablecloth pizzeria. Their sangria, however, is pretty amazing. Can’t put my finger on what made it stand out…cinnamon and something else that I couldn’t identify.

Cafe Fiorello
1900 Broadway | Upper West Side, New York
(212) 595-5330

Pinkberry

Pinkberry, where the frozen yogurt craze first gained popularity. The plain yogurt itself didn’t have that slightly sour tang I’ve become accustomed to. The toppings I tried (blackberries, mochi, coconut, manga) were all fresh tasting with the mochi winning much praise.

Yes, I realize the picture below is not what I just described above. Blame my horrible photography patience when food is involved.

Pinkberry
330 W 58th St | Columbus Circle, New York
(212) 397-0412

Katz’s Deli

My experience with deli meats are of the cold cut variety. It may have been the glitz of being in New York with some of my closest friends combined with the lack of sleep, but that late-night pastrami seemed like tender cuts of heaven served between two slices of bread.

Katz’s Deli
205 E Houston St | Lower East Side, New York
(212) 254-2246

And there you have it: my effort to eat my way though a weekend in the Big Apple. Throughout this series, I’ve made mention of the eateries that were memorable. The full photo gallery below contains pictures from lesser pit stops, including the not-so-large-world’s-largest-cheesecake.

As 2009 winds down to a close, I’d like to share the most memorable stories, experiences, and images of our threesome’s year in food.

Key Moments

What a time of transition. A new business, new contributors, and a new life to welcome into the world. 2010 is gonna be huge.

• An introduction to Tiny Bites Consulting
• On eating for two
• Introducing Team Tiny Bites

Dining Out

These are just a few of the places that Bruce, Degan, and I adored in 2009.

• Are you too cool for Qoola?
• Chinatown double feature: Phnom Penh and New Town Bakery
• Filipino Restaurant Series: Pinpin
• Visual Bites: Medina Cafe
• One fish, half a poutine at Red Fish, Blue Fish
• Visual Bites: Tamarind Hill
• Three things I’ll miss about Fuel Restaurant
• Diamond Girl
• A Refined Look at the Cocktail List
• Patio favourites in Victoria
• Bon eats at Baan Thai

Events Around Town

As a newly occupied parent, I’m sure that I’ll have to bow out of and/or delegate many of the events that we had enjoyed in 2009. This list is mostly for me to dwell in nostalgia as I tend to my little one in 2010.

• A play-by-play of the 2009 Culinary Tourism Society BC Conference
• An anthology of the 2009 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival
• A pictorial of the 2009 BC Restaurant Hall of Fame gala
• Wolfgang Blass: the other man who turned me on… to wine
• A Tasting With Bill Hardy
• Blogathon 2009 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society
• Foodists BBQ BootCamp
• Recap and tasting notes of the 2009 Gastown Blues and Chili Festival
• Wines of Chile supertasting
• Celebrating Oktoberfest with La Brasserie
• Treat yourself to the last days of the 2009 West Coast Chocolate Festival
• Cornucopia: the sessions
• Live coverage of Shark Truth’s inaugural fundraiser at Wild Rice Restaurant

Home Cooking

We sure did a lot of cooking this year!

• Football-friendly recipes for Super Bowl XLIII
• Recipes for a romantic Valentine’s Day at home
• Foodists fun with Wanda and the Butchers of Gastown
• On being a Yaletown Hobby Chef for a Social Bites dinner
• Family pho recipe revealed
• Rouxbe Cooking School Series: fun with pho, part 1 of 2
• Birthday cakes of immortality
• On the making of an edible Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
• My mother-in-law’s Christmas Eve tourtière recipe

Culinary Travel

I’m not going to be able to do nearly as much jetsetting in 2010 as our trio did in 2009. Here are the highlights of where we’ve been.

• Bites of Asia Series: dining along the edge of a volcano (Philippines)
• Celebrating Chinese New Year around the Pacific Rim (Macau / Hong Kong)
• A tale of two Daniel Boulud cities (Las Vegas, NV)
• Tiny Bites does the Langley Circle Farm Tour circuit (Langley, BC)
• A taste of Victoria with Coast Hotels & Resorts (Victoria, BC)
• High Tea Series: The Empress Hotel (Victoria, BC)
• Battle of Chicago deep dish pizzerias (Chicago, IL)
• Bruce eats New York: Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?) (New York City, NY)
• Bruce eats New York: fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar (New York City, NY)

Favourite Visuals

With so much going on this past year, it was difficult to write about everything we experienced. Consequently, these became hidden gems in my Flickr photostream. Here they are again for your viewing pleasure.

• Bites of Asia
  • Sentro 1771
  • Bohol Bee Farm
• Day tripping in Chilliwack
• A lesson in chocolate with the Dirty Apron Cooking School
• Harvest Picking Party at Township 7
• A Thanksgiving Wine Tour in the Okanagan
  • Sumac Ridge
  • Local Lounge
  • Spirit Ridge
  • Le Vieux Pin
• Pie Day
• A Night with Theo Chocolate
• Foodists’ Decadent Dinner Potluck

Favourite Discoveries

These people, events, and treats helped make 2009 an even yummier year.  Please check them out.

• Anita’s Organic
• Foodists
• Shark Truth
• Social Bites
• Sustainable Sushi
• Theo Chocolate
• Xoxolat

I’d go into it in more detail but I know that’s not what you’re waiting to hear. You want to know the results of the Christmas giveaways, don’t you?

We therefore wish Oana, Tina, and Brad an extra special Merry Christmas from Tiny Bites!

Thanks to all who participated in the Christmas giveaway. We hope that your holidays are filled with joy, love, and laughter for this year and the rest to come.

I had to call my mother-in-law for the recipe this week. It was one of those family recipes that hasn’t really been documented. Technically, she does have her notes jotted down somewhere, and I’m sure it was based on someone else’s recipe once upon a time, but my MIL does this savoury pie with her eyes closed nowadays. I hope I can do it justice and transport my husband if only briefly to his mother’s dinner table tonight.

For the pastry

You could always buy pastry shells from your local grocer, but for me and my family, Christmas is about making everything from scratch!

• 5 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 lb of (Tenderflake) lard, very cold
• 1 whole egg
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 2 cups ice cold water

Mix first 4 ingredients above in a large bowl. Integrate the lard using a pastry cutter.

Using a cup measure, break in 1 whole egg and add in 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Add enough ice cold water to make 3/4 cup liquid. Sprinkle this liquid over the lard mixture and toss together.

Divide into 5 equal pieces. For each pie you’ll make, roll out 2 pieces large enough for your pie plate. Shape remaining pieces into flattened discs and wrap in wax paper. You can freeze these in a large freezer bag for 3-6 months.

For the filling

• 2 lbs lean ground pork
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon pepper (generous grind)
• 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme, savoury, sage (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (1/3 teaspoon adding optional spices)
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic (optional)
• 1 cup boiling water (kettle)
• 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs

On medium to high heat, crumble pork into frying pan. Add water, garlic, onion, and spices. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes.

Cover and simmer for another 20 minutes. If there’s more than a 1/2 cup of fat in the pan, take out all but a 1/4 cup.

Mix in 1/4 cup of fresh bread crumbs and let cool completely.

Final Assembly

Lay one piece of your rolled out dough into pie pan. Fill to the brim with the meat mixture.

Lay the second piece of rolled dough over the pie. Press edges down with tines of a fork and cut excess off with a knife. Make Christmasy shapes to top pie with the excess dough. My mother-in-law does holly berries and leaves.

Brush top of pie with heavy cream or egg mixture (1 egg and 1 tablespoon water, beaten together). Lay down pasty dough decorations. Brush decorations very lightly with the cream or egg mixture.

Bake in oven at 375F for 30-40 minutes . You know it’s ready when dough is golden brown and sticking a knife into the very centre of the pie comes out piping hot.

Making ahead

If all you want to do on Christmas Eve is pop a pie into the oven, you can prepare everything in advance. As mentioned above, the pastry dough will keep 3-6 months in the freezer. You can make the filling up to a week in advance and assemble the final pie for the freezer.

To do so, wrap your uncooked pie in 2 layers of saran wrap and a layer of foil and place in your freezer. Thaw in the fridge the morning that you plan to serve your tourtière at dinner.

Bon appétit and have a wonderful Christmas Eve!