Cipâtes or Cipaille

Hearty enough for hungry sailors, this rustic meat pie develops its deep flavors from hours of slow cooking.

A traditional dish from Gaspésie, Cipâtes gets its name from "six-pâtes" which literally means 6 layers of dough. These were originally filled with a combination of wild meats such as partridge or duck, hare, elk, moose and venison meats.

Nowadays, easily available meats such as beef, pork and poultry, are used to make this dish. Seafood cipaille is also an option.

The other name of this dish, Cipaille, is a variation of "sea pie", the English meat pie served to sailors - initial inspiration for this dish.

I have chosen to make my pie in the slow cooker, however one can also use a Dutch oven to slowly cook it. You will need to make a hole in the middle of the pie and pour about a liter of bouillon in to keep the meat from getting dry.

I made my pie with only 3 layers of dough. You can try for 4, 5 or the traditional 6 layers instead.

Many of the recipes I found suggested using cubed potatoes in the recipe, while some people opposed this vehemently. I chose to omit the potatoes this time, in order to preserve a better balance between the protein choice and the starchy choice.

Adding a simple salad with balsamic dressing makes this a delicious and complete meal.

This recipe is part of the 2020 - Week 38 - Menu Gaspésien. Look under Menus for all other recipes of the series or Subscribe to our mailing list and receive complete weekly menu ideas with everything from the grocery shopping list to all standardized recipes in a menu, as well as an organized Order of Cooking list to save you time in the kitchen.

Download the standardized recipe here:

Cipates

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