{"id":56641,"date":"2025-01-26T06:37:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T11:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/?p=56641"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:28:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:28:56","slug":"unbeatable-pate-chinois-aka-shepherds-pie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/limbattable-pate-chinois\/","title":{"rendered":"Unbeatable p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois (aka shepherd's pie)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other morning at the coffee shop, my friends were salivating just thinking about the p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois that Claude was reminiscing about. Back then, he claimed, his dear wife Roselle would make it every Monday in a large baking dish to start the week right, with plenty left over to last until Wednesday. The smell that filled their small kitchen was so intoxicating that Claude couldn\u2019t get enough of the pie topped with homemade ketchup. The recipe was simple: ground beef, corn kernels and mashed potatoes, to which Roselle added a big dollop of margarine. When the timer beeped, Roselle would slip on her asbestos mittens, open the oven door and take out the piping-hot pan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dear Claude, you\u2019ve eaten this dish so many times, but do you even know where it comes from? Even I, who was raised on five or six meals of cod every week in Gasp\u00e9sie, remember Sunday night\u2019s p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois as a festive occasion. When my dad took out his small stainless steel meat grinder and installed it on the corner of the kitchen table, my sister and I couldn\u2019t wait for the dinner party to begin. Memory is failing me; I can\u2019t recollect if we had bottled ketchup back in those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to my friend Google, it turns out that this humble and hearty dish has many origins and variations. In Quebec, the dish is a staple of French Canadian cuisine. Its genesis remains unclear, though one theory associates it with the China pie from China, Maine, USA, that French-speaking workers brought back to their home province and rebaptized \u201cp\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois.\u201d The similar shepherd\u2019s pie version known to English Canadians traces its roots back to northern England and Ireland, where it was a frugal solution for using up leftovers from the Sunday roast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since all roads lead to Rome, I could say that all p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois pie recipes are equivalent and equal in taste. I remember when I first started cooking in my restaurant, the chatterbox in my head instructed me to surprise and delight our loyal customers with different variations of the recipe. I\u2019d put veal instead of beef or I\u2019d mix the two; sometimes, I\u2019d throw in leftover creton pork. On other occasions, I\u2019d add two or three sweet potatoes in my mashed potatoes simply to impress the clientele. Now and then, I\u2019d mix the corn kernels with green peas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I do it my way, I saut\u00e9 a large diced onion in a heavy pot with hot oil. Then I add about two pounds of beef or veal and I let it cook until the juices have entirely reduced and the meat starts to stick to the bottom. Then I throw in two tablespoons of HP sauce and a pinch of dried thyme. I remove the meat from the stovetop and transfer it to a dripping pan. Then I layer a 12-ounce can of creamed corn and the same quantity of corn kernels over the meat in a baking dish. I\u2019ve been using frozen corn for a few years now instead of canned corn because it stays firm even when thawed. I mash seven or eight large cooked potatoes to cover the corn entirely. I sprinkle the dish with salt and pepper, and add a few knobs of butter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tip:<br>After the potatoes have cooked, remove the water and place the pot on the stove for a few moments to allow the potatoes to dry, being careful that they don\u2019t stick to the bottom. Make sure you get out all the lumps when you mash them. I\u2019ve never done it, but you could also add three egg yolks to the pur\u00e9e for better consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dear readers, the cold winter months are already here. It\u2019s the perfect moment to warm up with a generous serving of p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cora<br>\u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other morning at the coffee shop, my friends were salivating just thinking about the p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois that Claude was reminiscing about. Back then, he claimed, his dear wife Roselle would make it every Monday in a large baking dish to start the week right, with plenty left over to last until Wednesday. The smell that filled their small kitchen was so intoxicating that Claude couldn\u2019t get enough of the pie topped with homemade ketchup. The recipe was simple: ground beef, corn kernels and mashed potatoes, to which Roselle added a big dollop of margarine. When the timer beeped, Roselle would slip on her asbestos mittens, open the oven door and take out the piping-hot pan. Dear Claude, you\u2019ve eaten this dish so many times, but do you even know where it comes from? Even I, who was raised on five or six meals of cod every week in Gasp\u00e9sie, remember Sunday night\u2019s p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois as a festive occasion. When my dad took out his small stainless steel meat grinder and installed it on the corner of the kitchen table, my sister and I couldn\u2019t wait for the dinner party to begin. Memory is failing me; I can\u2019t recollect if we had bottled ketchup back in those days. According to my friend Google, it turns out that this humble and hearty dish has many origins and variations. In Quebec, the dish is a staple of French Canadian cuisine. Its genesis remains unclear, though one theory associates it with the China pie from China, Maine, USA, that French-speaking workers brought back to their home province and rebaptized \u201cp\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois.\u201d The similar shepherd\u2019s pie version known to English Canadians traces its roots back to northern England and Ireland, where it was a frugal solution for using up leftovers from the Sunday roast.\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":56642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Au caf\u00e9 du village, le grand Claude d\u00e9crit le p\u00e2t\u00e9 chinois de son enfance. Mme Cora raconte cette discussion et l'amour de ce plat r\u00e9confortant.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"class_list":["post-56641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lettre-mme-cora"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56641"}],"curies":[{"name":"WP","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}