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| From Nola Cuisine Images – (reedited) |
These tasty turnovers, along with the Festival of Lights, are native to Natchitoches (pronounced NACK-uh-dish), Louisiana and are traditionally served on Christmas Eve. They’re usually made bigger, more of a hand pie, but I like them as an Hors d’oeurve for holiday parties. I served these tonight with a Creole Mustard Aioli for dipping. The recipe:
Natchitoches Meat Pies Recipe
For the Filling
2 Tbsp Butter
1/2 lb Ground Beef
1/2 lb Ground Pork
1/2 Cup Spanish Onion, finely diced
1/2 Cup Red Bell Pepper, finely diced
1/4 Cup Celery, finely diced
1/2 Cup Green Onions
3 Garlic Cloves, minced
2 Tbsp Homemade Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp Crystal Hot Sauce
Kosher salt, black pepper, and Cayenne to taste.
1/2 Cup Beef Stock
1/8 Cup All Purpose Flour
Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat, when hot add the ground meats, cook until browned and cooked through. Add the onions, celery, bell pepper, and green onions, cook until the vegetables are wilted. Add the garlic, Worcestershire, hot sauce, and seasonings, cook for 2 minutes more. Make a slurry of the stock and flour, add to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook for about 5 minutes stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and adjust the seasonings if necessary. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
For the dough:
4 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 tsp Iodized Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Lard
1 Egg
1 Cup Milk
Combine the dry ingredients in the mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, with the speed on low add the lard to the dry ingredients and let the mixer cut it in until the fat is broken up into pea sized pieces. Beat the egg and combine with the milk. Add the wet to the dry with the mixer on low, in a slow steady stream. Mix until the dough just comes together. The key is to not overwork the dough.
Cut the dough in half then roll it out to 1/8 inch thickness on a floured counter. Cut into either the more traditional 5 inch circles or as I did about 3 circles, I used an empty French Market Coffee can.
To assemble and cook:
Place 1 heaping Tablespoon (doubled for the larger size) of the cooled mixture to each circle. With your finger wet the edge with a little water, fold over and crimp with a fork. Set aside on a floured surface until ready to fry.
Heat 4 inches of oil in a dutch oven to 360 degrees. Fry the meat pies in small batches until golden brown on each side.
Be sure and check out my ever growing Index of Creole & Cajun Recipes!
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Oh you stole my thunder :), I went to the Christmas Festival this weekend and writing a post about it right now. I will definitely link to this one.
We went to the festival every few years when I was a kid. I remember sliding down the grassy slope of the riverbank on large sheets of cardboard. A Cajun toboggan.
A number of years ago we took a cross country trip from L.A. to North Carolina. One of our stops was Nachitoches where we did have the opprotunity to sample the infamous meat pie. Great memory.
I was living in Cloutierville, very near Natchitoches, when I first learned to make these for the Catholic Church Festival every year from the older women of the community. We spent the two weeks before the festival every year cooking tamales and meat pies in the church kitchen(about 10-12 women; I was the youngest). I now live and teach in Texas and was just searching the web…you presented me with a jump-back in time to those days…thank you for preserving the recipe for all of us…most of the ladies that taught me have passed on. This is great!
Thank you so much for making available this wonderful recipe. When I was a youth in Plaquemine, LA these where a favorite of mine. Living in Alabama now, true cajun food is harder to find. We recently had several new families, who had to evacuate their homes following Hurricane Katrina, move into our neighborhood. Their recent plight makes me think of many things, especially comforting of which are memories of wonderful comfort foods of my childhood. I hope to enjoy these soon, introducing them to a new generation. Thank you so much.
Dear heavens, you’ve just brought me back to my childhood. I haven’t had these since I was a wee one. My aunts live around the Natchitoches area still to this day, even.
Oh the memories. This website was a wonderful find, thank you, and I’ll certainly be watching for updates from now on. 🙂
My husband and I go to the festival of lights every new years. It is wonderful. We only wish the shops would stay open later and that the live music would reflect the culture of Natchitoches, like cajun or blues. Every year it is a young band that caters to the young crowd that likes rock music.
These meat pies look absolutely scrumptious !!! I do intend to make them and soon. My grandchildren saw these when I was looking at them online and asked me if I was going to make some. What can I say? I “had” to tell them yes, so now I am committed to doing so. Thank you for posting this recipe!
When I was taking Commercial Cooking class in high school in North Louisiana, one of the recipes was Nachitoches Meat Pies.Oh my goodness what a treat it was. Now I am grown up I cook them for my kids and they just love them, it is a treat for them at thanksgiving, christmas and superbowl! I got the recipe out of “Oh so good” cookbook..the recipe is a little different but still tastes the same..thanks for selling them in the grocery stores..a little pricey BUT worth it..
could you please give the recipe to the creole mustard aioli sauce for the meat pies. Thank you. They look wonderful! I can smell and taste them through the computer screen.
Can I please have the creole mustard aioli sauce receipe – thanks! I can’t wait to make these!!! (But they have to have the sauce)
I’m helping with a third grade tour in Natchitoches, and the history of the meat pie is scarce. Would you know how they came about or anything else that would help with the history of meat pies. For the comment on music and stores staying open later-they are doing that. Friday night tends to cater to college kids in music, but the rest of the time we try to have local music. The stores are tending to stay open later year round, but during Christmas, many extend their hours.
Aloha,
From the island of Maui…..I am writing to let you know that I discovered your recipe while searching for something else….and just finished making these wonderful scrumptious little envelopes of delight!!!
Hubby arrives home soon from a hard day at work and I can not wait to share with him.
Much Aloha!
I tried this recipe tonight. Meat filling recipe was right on except it left out the green onions in the ingredients list. I suggest 1/3 cup for now.
Big problem – the dough recipe is WAY off. It calls for 8 cups!?! of flour – that was a typo I’m sure. Substitute 4 cups of flour instead of 8 and the remainder of the recipe will work fine. Otherwise you’ll need to double all of the other ingredients and have lots of leftover dough.
One last suggestion. You do not need to have 4″ deep of oil for frying. 1.5″ did the trick for me (oil’s expensive and I’m cheap).
Once I fixed the furbar’d dough, it all came together and turned out great. The whole family loved it. Thanks for the recipe.
Regards,
John
John – Thanks for catching my mistakes, they are absolutely typos, 4 Cups is right on, I must not have changed it when I cut the larger recipe in half. They’re now corrected. Thanks again.
Gotta go, I need to call and tell my editor that he’s fired! 🙂
Thank you so much for leaving this up online for those of us who love meat pies!! I made this recipe today and it was great!
To Le Traylor
I was raised in Plaquemine too! On Meriam Street.
I moved to Las Vegas and have been CRAVING a Natchitoches Meat Pie. Thank you so much for putting this recipe up. Now I can teach my Portland, OR husband something new about Louisiana! 🙂
Thank you for making this recipe available. I would like to share it on my blogs, one connected to “Cast Iron Cookware Shop” URL and the other to URL “Tour Natchitoches with Barbara”. You post quality information.
Been researching family stuff the last few months, lots in the area. Twice made some gumbo for folks at work(Virginia), two gallons gone in less than an hour both times. Had an aunt that lived around Ft. Jesup that made meat pies, always a treat. A cousin and I even cut a window screen to get some one time. Wanted to make something the people up here have never had. I believe this is it. Parent’s still live in Rapides and get up there occasionally. Also may be kin to the Lasyones. Will definitely visit on my next trip down south, just a cooler time of year. Thanks for the info.
Do you have a recipe for the Worcestershire sauce? Thanks.
if you don’t have time to make from scratch here is a web site that you can order and have frozen pies sent to your door.. thanks and enjoy
this is an new site, natchitochesmeatpies.com
I have spent my whole adult life trying to explain to my family what a Natchitoches Meat Pie was and have yet been able to put it into words that they can taste. Thank you for ending this dilema for me, and I can’t wait to start cooking! It was just another meal when I was a kid. Now, I get to go back home for a meal or two. Thank you so much
What can I say. My wife is from Many, La. and she introduced me to Natchitoches Meat Pies and Zwolle Tamales. If you haven’t eaten either from Natchitoches or Zwolle then you are missing the treat of your life. I am from cajun country, Lafayette, La. and I thought we had some great food. We do a Cajun Meat Pie that is fabulous in its own right.
i just had one yesterday from a gas station in natchitoches yesterday and they were good! i also tried the crawfish one, it was good too, but the one with ground beef was just awesome
I’m going to try the recipe and see if it can compare to Lasyones. The dough recipe does not look like the plate size pies that they made. I think theirs was more like a cold water recipe pie crust. Hard to beat their pies.