Weekend project part 2 - The Pasty !

[curious aardvark]

So yesterday was playing with the smoker and some brisket - today it's about putting everything together and making the perfect cornish pasty (hell aim high I say lol)

The First Batch

The Filling

Started with the veggies.
1 small turnip
1 carrot
1 medium potato
1 small oinion.

These were chopped and mixed and cooked with butter till the carrot had just lost it's crunch.


Added approx same amount of smoked brisket to the veggies, then added some shropshire blue cheese (turned out it wasn't stilton lol), mixed and fine tuned salt and pepper seasoning.


The Pastry
Okay now the the pastry is the thing that really matters in a pasty.
For this first batch I decided to go for a fairly short pastry, it's good but it's not right lol
However incase anyone wants to make a really short savoury ruff puff pastry here's the recipe :-)

5 oz lard
9 ounces self rising flour
pinch of salt
sprinkle of mixed herbs.
enough cold water to make a smooth dough (I didn't measure it - sorry)



Making The pasty

Now we've got filling and pastry we can start making pastys.
I decided I'd initially make small snack sized pastys.
Used a 5 inch cookie cutter and rolled out 2oz dough to just bigger than the cutter and cut circles.


Brushed the circle with a little egg wash (beaten egg and little milk), and added about a small amount of the filling.


The next bit took a bit of practice to get right lol.
Fold over the dough and pinch the edge to seal and form a lip.


Then you sort of fold over part of the lip and pinch - takes two hands so no working pics.
If you get it right it looks like this:


You can see from this next pic that the first ones are on the left of the tray and by the last two on the right I was folding and pinching like a pro lol


Put them into middle of a hot oven for 10 minutes then turned it down to medium for 20 mins.


Right so they look good - but it's not the right pastry lol.

next batch I'll stay with the lard, but use plain flour and probably slightly less than half fat to flour.
The filling ended up about as good as I could have hoped. The extra cooking makes the beef really tender and the veggie mix and seasoning is spot on.

Right going to sit in the garden in the sun for a snooze then I'll make the second batch :-)
Got lots of lard and beef left, so I'll make some more small ones and then try a few biggies :-)

[lynsey123]

I'm on the next flight

[curious aardvark]

second batch (five only) were better. That was plain/all purpose flour.

The third batch I'm using half butter and half lard and this is going to be the final pastry.
Also the pastry to filling ratio is much too high in these little snack pastys (don't get me wrong just had 3 for my breakfast - they're not bad lol)
So my final batch is going to be a more conventional sized pasty.
Looking at filling and pastry I should get at least half a dozen :-)
I've also added some of the pastrami to the filling mix to bulk it up a bit lol
(sliced the rest)

Pics later, decided to extend the weekend chill out to today as well :-)

[SmokinLee]

I always enjoy making those and comeing up with different filling Ideas from sweet to savory. Yours look real good.

[teeotee]

Good looking pasties

CA good job on the pastys, great pics as ever.

My dad was from Cornwall and whever we would visit his family we'd always get pasties, hmmmm. I think it took my mum almost 15 years to perfect hers.

This is definitely on my to do list. Really like the idea of smoked brisket and blue cheese. I know turnip is traditional but i'd probably use potato instead.

[curious aardvark]

I know turnip is traditional but i'd probably use potato instead.

Noooo.
Turns out it's the turniup that gives you that typical pasty taste.
Just use potato and it'd just be a meat pie.
This is the first time I've ever used turnip for anything - but certainly not the last :-)

[teeotee]

Noooo.
Turns out it's the turniup that gives you that typical pasty taste.
Just use potato and it'd just be a meat pie.
This is the first time I've ever used turnip for anything - but certainly not the last :-)

I will certainly consider using turnip then

Either way, you got me thinking about pastys.

[curious aardvark]

lol wait till you see the final results from batch 3 :-)

The half lard half butter pastry is the closest to the cornish pastry.
After cooking it's still got some elasticity (pasties shouldn't break too easily) while retaining shortness and tastes much much better than the all lard stuff.

For this final batch i used 3 oz of pastry and rolled it out so I could cut a 7 inch circle.

This is a much better sized pasty. The pastry doesn't over power the filling.

you can see here how much difference a 7 inch circle makes over a 5 inch one.


And yes i'd had lunch - but you've got a tray of hot fresh pastys - you've got to eat one right ? right !

Really excellent, all the flavours come through, the pastry works a treat and if they'd been bigger I'd have thought I was munching down on a top notch cornish beauty :-).
So my advice is if you make pastys - make 'em big and don't skimp on the turnip or beef :-)

[cowgirl]

Mmmmm.... looks excellent CA!

[Gunslinger]

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Dang, I'm cornfused.
Actually they look dang good there CA. Try rutabaga next time, or even kohlrabi. Oh yeah, kohlrabi, now that's good stuff.

[SmokinLee]

I believe it's just a difference in the crust. When I make pasties, I use a pastry dough and I do us rutabaggies. Now when I make beirrocks I use bread dough and these are the ones I experiment with mostly. I like my pasties just plain ol traditional.

[Bbqgoddess]

Wow Alex,
They look great... I have never had a pasty... never heard of them before this post.. I have on the other hand had "empanadas" which is an Argentine form of a meat pie. Thanks for all the dough information and great tutorial... I will have to try this! I am and now craving an empanada...

[curious aardvark]

Argentine empanadas are often served at parties as a starter or main course, or in festivals. Shops specialize in freshly-made empanadas, with many flavors and fillings.

The dough is usually of wheat flour and lard with fillings differing from province to province: in some it is mainly chicken in others beef (cubed or ground depending on the region), perhaps spiced with cumin and paprika, while others include onion, boiled egg, olives, or raisins. Empanadas can be baked (more common in restaurants and cities) or fried (more common in rural areas and at festivals). They may also contain ham, fish, humita (sweetcorn with white sauce) or spinach; a fruit filling is used to create a dessert empanada. Empanadas of the interior regions can be spiced with peppers.

In restaurants where several types are served, a repulgue, or pattern, is added to the pastry fold. These patterns indicate the filling.

yep that's a pasty alright.
It's fillings that make the difference. A traditional cornish pasty must have turnip (or rutabaga lol) and that's what gives it it's distinctive taste.
But you can see from the pics and description of dough - that's pretty much the only difference :-)

Also given that a lot of miners and mining enginerers went to argentina in the 18th and 19th century - makes you wonder whether the empanada also had it's origins in cornwall :-)

[lcruzen]

Nice looking pasties CA! As I've said before I'm also a rutabage guy when I make them. Also, my mixture everything goes in raw including the meat and I usually use a course ground sirloin.

[curious aardvark]

just a quick update on the pasty pastry :-)

Add a lightly beaten egg to the pastry. This adds elasticity and a little bit of density.

So final pasty pastry recipe would be:

3 oz butter
2 oz lard
4.5 ounces self rising flour
4.5 ounces plain (all purpose flour)
pinch of salt
sprinkle of mixed herbs.
1 beaten egg
enough cold water to make a smooth dough (I didn't measure it - sorry)

You can also use all plain flour or all plain flour with 1/2 tsp baking powder.

I like the slight flakiness that a little raising agent adds.

I have also learned new chapati/tortilla rolling skills in the last 3 years and these days I just divide the pastry dough into even lumps and just roll out to required size. No cutting necessary :-)