Cornish Pasties

Submitted by KiwiBoi Uploaded by Schpyder

[Wikipedia] says:

quote:

A Cornish pasty or Cornish pastie is a type of pie, originating in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is an oven-cooked pastry case traditionally filled with diced meat - nowadays beef mince (ground beef) or steak - potato, onion and swede (rutabaga). It has a semicircular shape, caused by folding a circular pastry sheet over the filling. One edge is crimped to form a seal. In Devon, a Devon Pasty is very similar but the crimp is at the top of the pasty rather than the side.

...

Tradition claims that it was originally made as lunch ('croust', in the Cornish language) for Cornish miners who were unable to return to the surface to eat. The story goes that, covered in dirt from head to foot, they could hold the pasty by the folded crust and eat the rest of the pasty without touching it, discarding the dirty pastry. The pastry they threw away was also supposed to appease the capricious spirits in the mines, the knockers, who otherwise might lead miners into danger. Additionally, the dense, folded pasty stayed hot until lunchtime and, when carried close to the body, helped the miner stay warm.

(I don't believe the claim about the meat/fruit ones which follows that. And the photo there is all kinds of wrong.)

Ingredients

• Diced carrot, potato and turnip (aka swede):

• Pastry (savory short crust):

• (I was lazy and used frozen pre-made stuff)

• MEAT!! I used lamb. You can use beef, which is more usual:

• I chopped this up more even though is was already diced.

• Salt, pepper, herbs of your choosing (not pictured).

Method

• Flour up your bench and get your pastry ready (it's defrosted BTW). I cut mine in half so it wouldn't get too big.

• Roll it out and use a small plate to cut circles out of it. These are about the size of my hand in diameter:

• Place veges and meat on your little pasty circles. Add seasoning. Brush the edges with water and fold together and press to seal the edges and make little bundles of happiness:

• Place completed pasties on a baking tray:

• Crack an egg into a bowl and mix it up a bit:

• Brush your pasties with the egg mix to ensure a lovely golden crust:

• GET IN ZE OVEN!:

• Bake at 220C for 20 mins then reduce heat to 160 and bake for a further 40 minutes.

• And, as they say in Cornwall: Voila!

• There is some method by which you can make the fold bit look all fancy, but it was beyond my talent. Also, mine look a bit knobbly as my vege bits were large and the pasty was thin. Doesn't bother me though!

• Do season these at the appropriate time, or they will end up very bland tasting (I missed one or two, so I know this). In future I would even add a splash of Worcestershire before folding them up.