189. New England Meat Pie

I picked this recipe not because I was craving a New England Meat Pie, but because I had every single ingredient on hand with the exception of the frozen hash browns–an easily acquired grocery item.

I had no idea as to what New England Meat Pie is. Google’s main result was a Tourtiere, a French meat pie enjoyed across Canada and New England:

Tourtière, also known as pork pie or meat pie, is a combination of ground meat, onions, spices, and herbs baked in a traditional piecrust. There are many variations of tourtière throughout the regions of Franco-American communities and Canada and even among members of the same family.

Most recipes include a combination of ground pork and beef, but it is not unusual to include venison or other game meats in the pie. 

This recipe is decidedly not a Tourtière.

It’s a meatball pie.

Meatball pie sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Like a meatball calzone in a pie plate? 

Well, this recipe is not that, either.

A question: what planet does this recipe need a full pound of ground beef?

You cannot fit more than that number of meatballs in a ten inch pie pan.

Speaking of the pie pan, I was really surprised at how the potato pie shell was coming together.

The shell browned:

Here is the filling:

But I accidentally left the oven door open a bit when I put the filling into the potato shell, so the temp dropped all the way into the 200-somethings.  So instead of the pie popping in for just 20 minutes it took closer to 40.

Whatever.

Here is the result:

There were no surprises here. It tasted just like one would expect: tomato-based meatball stew on top of crispy hash browns.

I didn’t hate it.

Mr. Sauce, Esq. said I should make it again but without the vegetables and more cheese.

So basically an Italian meatball pie. In shredded potatoes.

I could get behind that.

And although on the menu but not in the photo, I still made the Apple-Cranberry Salad Mold to use up the leftover canned cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving.

It doesn’t look great, but it tasted good.