Pasties are a common lunch time meal in the UK, they come in many flavours but are all a folded pastry case filled with a savoury filling. The most famous pasty is the Cornish pasty. It is so famous in fact, it has a protected status, so to be a true Cornish pasty it can only have certain ingredients and must be made in Cornwall. Now I’m not about to hop on a plane to Cornwall (although I don’t need much encouragement to travel) but I will use an accurate Cornish pasty recipe sourced from the Cornish Pasty Society website as my starting point.
Apart from the ingredients, the other famous part of the pasty is the crimped edge which give a thick ridge of pastry along the join. It is said this ridge is so miners, farm workers and labourers could hold the ridge with their dirty hands so they didn’t handle the pasty and then dispose of it afterwards. The original disposable packaging! Whether it a practical design feature or a decorative flourish, it is a distinctive feature of the Cornish pasty and delicious to eat if your hands are clean.
A pasty makes a great picnic item because it is easy to transport and eat as the contents are contained in the pastry. Now that I’ve made you hungry, let’s make some.
Not so traditional after all...
I started off with the best of intentions but then I couldn’t bring myself to buy swede/rutabaga when I had perfectly good white turnip fresh from the garden. In fact I wanted all the vegetables to be from the garden so I dug up a few new potatoes but those potatoes are purple. At this point it was in for a penny, in for a pound so I also put in a carrot (not from the garden, carrots are just not happening this year) and a pinch of nutmeg because it seemed like a good idea.
If you want to be a purist, follow the link to the original recipe above. Otherwise, continue to the recipe below for my Cornish style pasty.
Ingredients
Pastry
- 500g bread flour
- 100g lard
- 125g butter
- 175ml water
- salt to taste
- skirt steak/inside flank steak
- potatoes
- turnip
- carrot
- onion
- salt and pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Method
- Make the pastry first. While the pastry is chilling in the fridge you can prepare the filling.
- Weigh your pastry ingredients. Put the flour and fat and salt into a mixing bowl and rub the fat and flour together until it combines to look like bread crumbs with no big lumps
- Slowly add the water to the crumb mixture. I was tempted to add more water as the mix didn’t seem to be coming together but I persevered and I got a good dough.
- This next step was a struggle because I was always taught to handle pastry as little as possible. Knead the dough until it feels smooth and elastic. About 5 mins.
- Wrap the pastry in plastic or a food wrap and put it in the fridge to chill for up to 3 hours. Mine was only in for an hour and seemed to be fine but the original recipe says 3 hours.
- Chop your filling ingredients. Try to have them all about the same size to ensure everything gets cooked through. About 1 cm cubed is good or finer if you want.
- Mix all of the filling ingredients together in a large bowl along with the seasoning.
- Take your dough out of the fridge and cut into 6 pieces of the same size. To be really accurate you can weigh your dough.
- Roll out one piece of dough at time into a circle about 20 cm in diameter. I not great at rolling circles so I used a tea plate to measure size and cut around to get a circle.
- Keep the other pieces of dough in the fridge while you roll out. I found the dough got harder to work with as it warmed up both when rolling out and in the next stage which is the filling and crimping.
- Spread out your pastry circles and distribute the filling evenly between them.
- Moisten the edge of the pastry with milk or egg wash and then fold in half. I found it easiest to pick up the pastry and cup it in my hand while I crimped the edges closed with my other hand.
- Start at the fold and pinch the two sides together, fold over the pinched edge and pinch it again.
- Move along the pastry, pinching and folding the edge.
15. Finally put your pasties on a tray. Brush with egg wash. I like to use a mixture of egg and milk and bake in the oven for 50 mins to an hour. You want them to be a rich golden brown.
16. Let them stand for 10 mins to cool slightly before eating. This allows the liquid to re-absorbed by the filling so it doesn’t run out onto your plate. For picnics, let them cool completely so they don’t sweat in the container and make the pastry soggy.
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Taste Test
The final pasty was delicious and satisfying. The pastry was firm but flaky and melted in your mouth. The chunky texture of the filling made it feel like a meal and the flavours combined wonderfully. Everything was moist and tender. I’ll definitely be making more of these in the future.
Share your experience of making these in the comments below.
Enjoy summer, stay safe, stay at a distance and as always, be creative.
