Make Ahead

Cretons - French Canadian Pork Pate

Name: Cretons - French Canadian Pork Pate
Prep time: 8 h
Cook time: 2 h 15 min
Yield: Serves Lot of people
Cuisine: Canadian
Ingredients: 3 pounds ground pork; 3 medium onions, small dice or grated on cheese grater; 4 cloves of garlic, minced or grated; 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves; 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 2 teaspoons salt; 1-2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper; 1 cup panko bread crumbs pulverised in food processor (or not)

by: anka

August 7, 2016

9 Ratings

Photo by anka

Prep time 8 hours
Cook time 2 hours 15 minutes
Serves Lot of people

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Author Notes

Cretons is a French Canadian dish; it is very popular in French-speaking areas of Canada especially Quebec. It is a pork spread containing onions and spices. —anka

Ingredients

3 pounds ground pork
3 medium onions, small dice or grated on cheese grater
4 cloves of garlic, minced or grated
¹/₄ teaspoon ground cloves
¹/₄ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons salt
1-2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 cup panko bread crumbs pulverised in food processor (or not)

Directions

Place all ingredients except bread crumbs in a large pot on high temperature and cook stirring constantly until all meat stay separated and not in the lumps.
Turn heat down to medium and cover with lid.
As the pork simmered for 2 hours stir occasionally if it gets to dry add some water. On the end take the lid off and let the most water evaporate stir in bread crumbs and mix for next 5-6 minutes.
Take off the stove, scope mixture into ramekins or small loaf pan lined with saran wrap, cover and let cool in the fridge overnight.
Serve with nice crusted toasted bread, topped with mustard and pickles, sliced or chopped hard boiled egg or just plain.
This can be frozen too.

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7 Reviews

Write a Review

Roger D. January 23, 2018

I'm of Canadian descent. Grams NEVER put garlic or onions.....Ground Cloves, Ground Cinnamon and Ground Allspice....some lard (because store-bought pork is too lean).....BUT I guess it's all to taste.

Dany C. April 30, 2021

I am French Canadian and grew up with creton....you have no idea what you're talking about. There is onions and garlic in most creton recipe

Roger D. May 15, 2021

WOW....rude much??? I DID say it was my Gram's recipe and "to taste"......

Aimee H. January 3, 2018

I learned this from my mother and grandmother. A different version.

3 lbs of fatty pork, ground three times
2 small onions, diced
Bells Seasoning
Water
Salt & Pepper

Add ground pork to saucepan and cover with water. Add onions and then sprinkle Bells Seasoning to cover. Salt and pepper
Bring to a boil, stir occasionally
Simmer until the water is gone and transfer to a glass bowl. Once cooled, put in fridge and overnight the fat rises to top.
Great in toast. It was a winter comfort food and tastes great with s cold glass of milk.
Hard to find fatty pork these days. I do have a butcher shop that will do this for me.

Anon November 12, 2017

NIce recipe, maybe just spell check it, there’s a few grammatical errors in it. I.e accept =except, scope = scoop, to dry = too dry take of the stove = take off the stove and the paragraph of 3. Is written in a strange sentence structure. Anyways sorry, don’t want to appear mean but I couldn’t help it! Great recipe though! Very tasty