September’s cooking the world will be Sunday, September 29th at 11 am. I’d like to have a headcount by Thursday, September 26th so that I know if any of the recipes need to be doubled. For those who are unfamiliar with the event, welcome! Each month, I pick a country’s national dish off of Wikipedia’s national dish list. Anyone interested can volunteer to grab ingredients that are needed (listed at the end of this). Then, we get together, and cook the dish! It’s a really good time, a great excuse to eat good food, learn about other cultures, and show off your cooking skills!
This month we’re doing my home country; Canada! You might be thinking, Canada? How much different can their food be from ours? It’s true, Canadian food uses a lot of the same ingredients that are found in a lot of American food, but we have some gems. We’re actually going to be doing two dishes! AND it’s our first country that drinks alcohol! Canada is very exciting.
So! Foodwise; we’re going to be cooking Tourtiere! It’s a meat pie from the province of Quebec. It’s fairly simple, however it requires a homemade crust. Which, also is fairly easy. However, if we’re feeling overwhelmed, I’m willing to fold and get store-bought crust, just know that I’ll pout about it.
The tourtiere has to cook for at least an hour, and honestly, it doesn’t feel right to do Canada without bringing up poutine. So we’re gonna make some of that too. Poutine is delicious, and simple! It’s a classic combination of French fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy. The cheese curds are crucial. I’ve seen many restaurants boast about their “poutine”, and have been given fancy cheese fries. Throw pork on it, throw butter chicken on it, hell, throw a pierogi on it! As long as there are cheese curds and fries, it’s poutine. Anyways, I figure while we’re waiting for the tourtiere to cook, we can have a halftime snack of poutine! I don’t have an actual recipe for this, just because it’s so simple.
Let’s talk drinks! Turns out, Canada has at some point declared the Caesar to be their national drink. They’re essentially the funkier cousin of the Bloody Mary. Instead of simply using tomato juice, you use clamato juice. Which, is just basically tomato juice, but with spices and clam juice! Yeah. I know. It sounds awful, but don’t knock it til you try it. I like them, but my husband does not, so he brought up having Canadian Whiskey. Normally I’d say “No! It’s the National Drink! We have to try it!” but, I also like Canadian whiskey. So we’ll probably have both! In terms of non-alcoholic drinks, I’m hoping to get some crush cream soda, because it’s one of the few sodas I drank in my childhood.
Below are the needed ingredients & recipe breakdown (NOTE The Tourtiere recipe makes 10 servings. Again, please RSVP by Thursday, September 26th so that we can adjust accordingly if needed) anything that is listed in the recipe but isn’t listed below I already have on hand and will bring. I’ll also provide all the poutine ingredients. Hope to see you there!
Tourtiere (meat pie):
2 lbs ground pork
1 ½ cups beef stock
3 onions
3 cloves of garlic
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 cup celery
½ teaspoon of dried summer savory
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 egg
Crust of Tourtiere:
3 tablespoons sour cream
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup lard / vegetable shortening
2 eggs
Caesar:
1-2 bottles of clamato juice
Worcestershire sauce
BBQ Sauce
Pickle Juice
Tabasco
Horseradish
Steak spice
