Skip to main content
Main

Christmas Tourte a LA Chatelaine

A Christmas tourte filled with mince meat, served hot with brandy and Devonshire cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Brandy and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,635 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

Christmas Tourte a LA Chatelaine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the case

  1. Prepare the pastry for the case as you would for a pie.

  2. Fill the case with enough mince-meat to fill it handsomely.

  3. Cover the filled case securely with pastry or thick paper.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake gently at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes or longer until the currants and raisins are tender.

  2. Remove the inside of the tourte and fill it with hot mince-meat.

  3. Pour a little fresh brandy over the mince-meat.

  4. Ignite a strip of paper and touch it to the tourte at the dining room door to serve it in a blaze, or serve it hot without brandy with Devonshire cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  2. Meat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,248 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + brandytop 26% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pastry for the case
Forms the outer shell that holds the filling and crisps during gentle baking.
Mince-meat
Provides the rich, sweet, fruity filling that fills the tourte.
Fresh brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and when ignited it briefly flares as the tourte is served.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes