This recipe is the exact traditionnal French Canadian tourtière that I've grown up to eat Christmas after Christmas. My grandmother's tourtière tasted exactly like this, except that she never used potatoes, starch or bread crumbs in her tourtière(which she found diminished the taste of the meat and the spices). She simply wasn't puting much of the broth in the pie to begin with. The result was a very tasty tourtière that wasn't runny at all. As for the suggestion of adding other spices and herbs, such as ginger and savoury, well that would perhaps create a different meat pie with a different taste, but that certainly would not be a traditionnal French Canadian Tourtière anymore.

Reviewed On: Jan. 2, 2004

This recipe makes a good meat pie... but it is not a traditional Tourtière recipe. A true Tourtière requires no herb, no garlic, no chicken broth (water is used instead), but rather the following spices: cinnamon, cloves, all spice, salt and pepper. So, as a French Canadian, I would not mind serving this meat pie say on a cold January night, but certainly not on Christmas Eve (Réveillon), as it would break the tradition.

Reviewed On: Jan. 2, 2004