Savoury holiday dishes featured in annual recipe exchange

Looking for a great recipe that will add some of that holiday magic to the family dinner table? Have no fear, North by Northwest listeners have submitted their favourite home-cooked dishes for all to enjoy!

Over 30 recipes were submitted this year by our audience members after we asked them to send in their favourite savoury recipes for appetizers and side dishes. You can see the entire collection here — full of recipes that share the common themes of family, friends and fun.

• North by Northwest's Savoury Recipe Exchange

Some of the recipes featured include delicious Cranberry Sauce and Walnut Wedges, and the CBC reporter Belle Puri's Cheesey Potato Cass.

Selected recipes will be featured regularly on the CBC British Columbia's webpage.

Tourtiere, by Vancouver's Marie Schneider

Schneider: I first learned about Tourtiere meat pies as a Christmas tradition in the many magazines I read. I've got 3 yellowed clippings that I've used and blended to make up this Tourtiere recipe. One has a page footer from Chatelaine from 1984, the other two clippings are from Canadian Living and Homemakers.

At first I just filed the clippings with cookie recipes and other Christmas notes. I didn't have the courage to try any of the three because, well, pie needs pastry. And I didn't have much luck with pastry.

Then my husband's mom Louise gave me her pastry dough recipe, and the encouragement to bake pies.

Richard and I were married in December, 1985. In December, 1986 we had Tourtiere on Christmas Eve. Here's to the next 30 years.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme and savory
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 medium size potatoes

Method

Prepare pastry (recipe below) and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and mash, keep warm.

Combine meat, onion, garlic and seasonings in a large frying pan or dutch oven. Cook, uncovered, about 20 minutes, or long enough to remove the pink colour from the meat. Drain some of the fat if you want, but the mixture should be moist. Add the mashed potatoes and mix to combine thoroughly.

Preheat oven to 375F. Roll out pastry and line a deep dish pie plate (9 or 10 inches). 

Turn the meat and potato mixture into prepared shell. 

Roll out and add top crust. Trim and crimp edges to seal. Slash crust in several places.

Bake on bottom rack of preheated oven 35 to 40 minutes until pastry is golden.

Makes a large pie. Serves 8.

Good served with a chutney or with salsa as an accompaniment.

Louise's Pastry:

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons icing sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup Crisco
• 1/4 cup butter
• 9 tablespoons ice water

Method:

Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in Crisco and butter with a pastry blender until pea sized bits form. Add ice water a few tablespoons at a time and mix with a fork to form dough into a ball. Wrap in wax paper and chill in the fridge for a few hours. Makes a double crust.

Dough will be soft to handle and will likely crack and tear while rolling out and folding into the pie plate. Just patch and persevere.