Cipaille

Cipaille is a traditional French Canadian dish. It is wild game and potatoes with a beautiful spice blend layered between pastry and cooked slowly in broth. If my history is correct, European settlers would make these pies for the long voyages overseas to the “New World.” Hence the name “cipaille” which got its origin from the words “sea pie.”

For more on the history, check out the addition (coming soon) in French on the history of cipaille from the resident francophone in the family, Marc-Andre.

The recipe is a bit onerous - this is very much a holiday dish - but it is totally worth it. Take a Sunday to dedicate to this tasty dish, and you’ll be thanking yourself for the next week’s worth of meals, because this sucker is HUGE!

You’ll need two batches of pastry. Here is my pastry recipe which you can either make in two separate batches, or do a double batch all together. Depends on how big your food processor is, or how much pastry you want to wrestle in one go.

Pastry:

1 1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup arrowroot powder

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 cup very cold butter (use unsalted, or if you only have salted then limit the added salt to a pinch, or don’t add additional salt at all)

1 egg

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp (or so, use your gut in terms of how much moisture your pastry needs) of ICE COLD water

How to make the pastry:

Combine dry ingredients in bowl or food processor. Then add cubed up cold butter and blend until you have small pea-sized bits of butter. Don’t over mix! Once you have small bits of butter, add the egg, the apple cider vinegar, and one tbsp of the cold water. Mix up and see how dry it is. It should still appear crumbly, but should hold together like a dough when you press it together. If it is too dry, add another tbsp of water.

Once you have your dough together, wrap it up and place it in the fridge to set for about 20 minutes. Then remove it and roll it out onto your workspace in a long rectangle. Fold the dough in thirds (lay it out width-wise in front of you, then fold the right side into the centre, and fold the left side over that). Repeat this process of resting in the fridge, rolling out and folding about 2 or 3 times. Once that’s completed, your dough is ready to use.

The filling ingredients:

Butter, coconut oil or duck fat

Wild game or other meats of your choice! You can pick up to three. I chose bison, organic chicken thighs, and elk.

2 yellow onions, diced

3 cloves of garlic, diced finely

4 stalks of celery, chopped small

3 carrots, chopped small

2 medium sweet potatoes

1/4 tsp ground glove

1 tsp dried thyme

1 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

2 tsp dried juniper berries, ground up in a mortar and pestle

4-5 cups of broth (I used store bought beef bone broth with organic ingredients and no salt added, but you can use homemade. Just avoid stuff with salt added or other unsavoury ingredients)

Salt and pepper to taste

To make the filling:

Start with your veggie mix. I used duck fat as my cooking oil because I wanted to be really traditional, and it adds an amazing flavour. Duck fat is also excellent for you as it is full of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. Sweat the onions in the duck fat (maybe a tbsp) and then add the garlic. Once the onions and garlic are cooked down a bit, add the celery and the carrots. Then add the spices, and cook the mixture until everything is well amalgamated. I cooked mine on medium heat for about 15 minutes. While you don’t really need to cook the veggies (they’ll cook in the oven) I like to ensure that the spices get some warmth so that they can integrate well with the other ingredients. Once done, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Set aside your veggie mix and then work on the proteins. I just chopped each protein into bite sized pieces and seared them. I did each protein one at a time, and each time I was done searing one of the meats, I would add 1/3 of the veggie mixture to it, stir, and set aside. I repeated this 3 times until I had an even mixture of bison/veg, chicken/veg, and elk/veg. Chop the sweet potato into small chunks and set aside as well.

Once everything is ready to go, split your pastry into four and then roll the first piece of pastry into about 1/4 inch thick and cut a circle (or square, depending on your pot shape) to fit the size of your cooking vessel. You’ll need something deep - I chose a ceramic dutch oven. I put the layer of bison down into the pot first, followed by a layer of sweet potato and then a layer of pastry. You need to cut a small hole in the pastry, which you can do before or after you lay it over the meat and veg. Follow this process three times until you have three layers of meat, sweet potato and pastry. The hole in the top layer of pastry is the most important as that’s what you’ll be pouring broth into.

Once you have all three layers, you can use the remaining pastry you have to make little decorative pieces like leaves, lattice or a rope border.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Warm your broth in a separate pot on the stove and have it handy with a ladle. Place your cipaille into the oven, and then fill it with broth until you see the broth rise up to the top hole. Continue to fill with broth throughout the cooking process - I found I didn’t need much more but it depends on your oven. Cook and continue this broth process for 5 hours. If you need to, you can add some tin foil on the top to prevent the top from browning too much. I cut a hole in my tin foil to permit steam to escape and to permit me to pour broth through if needed.

After 5 hours your cipaille should be ready! It should be nice and golden brown on the top, and the pastry in between the meat layers will have soaked up that broth to make a delicious and smooth filling. Enjoy as a Holiday dish or if you’re feeling really ambitious (and hungry) on a lazy Sunday!