When the email highlighting this Tourtiere Pie arrived mid-December, I knew immediately that I wanted to try it -- I loved the appearance of the pie cooked in the skillet! I hadn't yet read this blog when I made it a couple days ago but I see that I am not the first one to be reminded of pasties. I grew up in South Australia, where pasties are as common as hamburgers in the US, and I always loved them. Despite being a "from scratch" cook myself, I sheepishly admit that I always liked the bakery versions of pasties better than the home-made ones, mostly because of the light, crisp, golden flaky pastry. We made them at home too, usually a dozen or so individual turnover style ones, and then a pastie pie to use up all the filling we had left. There was often a problem with the pastie pie though, as pastie filling goes in "raw" and the density of the pie required lengthy cooking time, which could make the pastry tough. Making this tourtiere pie has given me the idea of applying the same principle to precooking the pastie pie filling, including mashing some of the potato to act as a binder. Despite living in southern Indiana since 1973, I had never come across pasties in the US until a couple of years ago. My husband saw a bakery in Madison, WI, that sold them several years ago, but we couldn't find it when we spent a week touring and camping in the state in 2008. Then in one small town we found two places that advertised pasties -- I was excited, but then disappointed. The first diner served us a piece of a square pie with pastry only on the top, and corrected my pronunciation of pastie, saying it should rhyme with "nasty." No, no, no -- it should sound as if there is an "r" in there, like "parstie. The second restaurant served us a misshapen turnover that contained meat and potatoes but nothing else and was very bland -- they prided themselves on cooking them "for hours" which seemed strange to me. I offer the above with apologies to Wisconsonites -- we loved your cheeses and your wines, we loved your countryside of patchwork fields and your state parks, we even enjoyed getting lost on your crazy double letter roads! But pasties, and specifically pastie pie -- I'm back to the kitchen to try a tourtiere inspired version.

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