Tourtière!

Here on Planet Borscht, I present to you our very first guest Blogger.
Please warmly welcome Miss Harms and her tales of fine food from afar!



Hello fine foody folks.

I recently returned from La belle province, and while there, I dined at 'Aux Anciens Canadiens'. This most charming restaurant in Old Québec specializes in old school cuisine served by delightful wait staff wearing period costumes. . .the period being French colony Québec.

The lunchtime meal--Table à Haute: your choice of main dish, including soup du jour (a delightful creamy tomato while we were there), dessert (maple sugar pie or apple cranberry pie served with fresh cream, not whipped cream or ice cream. . . cream!) and a glass of wine or beer! And the beer was not hum-drum beer. It was all tasty beers like Boréal Russe, ooh or Blonde. . . mmmm) (Coffee was extra) for a mere 14.95$!


And now, the meat of my entry-- the main dishes! First, "Tourtiére Lac-St-Jean avec des viandes sauvages" (right). The wild meats included caribou, boeuf, cerf (deer) and wapiti (elk). It was a most succulent tourtiére. So juicy, and seasoned excellently. It was the best tourtiére ever to touch my tastebuds (sorry St. Jo).


Also, the tourtière was not in pie form. It was more of a loaf. The breaddy crust wrapped around the meaty filling. Note the lovingly cubed potatos, and the bits of extra-burned. Oh, Heaven!


And the daily main dish special "Pâté en croûte de Wapiti avec le Romarin" (super-flaky crusted wapiti pie with rosemary). Oh my, yum yum yum! the wapiti was definitely much drier (and therefore leaner?) than the tourtiére. The crust was most dilectible, and melt-in-your mouth. I am guessing it was definitely lard. And the rosemary crept up on you and enveloped your olfactory and savory senses in a big blanket of joy!


To top it all off, the sides that accompanied the main dish (viewed here and above) were divine! The orange-red-yellow mixture is a tomato, onion and yam pickle. It is sweet, tart and delightful, and I will never enjoy ketchup again. There was a smattering of lightly--perfectly--steamed sugar snap peas, and the most amazing yams I have ever tasted. They must have been approximately 2/3 boiled yams mashed with 1/3 butter, and liberallty mixed with salt. And piping hot! Everything arrived at just the right time, and steaming to perfection!

Vive Le Québec!