Cornish Pasties

 

Cornish Pasty, is a baked pastry, a traditional variety of which is particularly associated with Cornwall, the western- and southernmost county in England.  It is made by placing uncooked filling of meat and vegetables, on one half of a flat shortcrust pastry circle, folding the pastry in half to wrap the filling in a semicircle and crimping the curved edge to form a seal before baking.  The traditional Cornish Pastry is filled with beef, diced potatoes, turnip and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper.

Today there are many different varieties of different fillings.  You will find Cornish Pasty stands in Malls and Train Stations in London.  People will grab a pasty, that comes in a brown paper bag and convinient to eat, and eat it on the go.

Cornish Pasty was our meal at least a couple of times a week, (when we lived in England) it came with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Ingredients

Pastry

  • 1            lb white flour
  • 1/2         lb butter
  • 4            tbsp cold water

Filling

  • 1            lb ground beef
  • 1/2         tsp crushed garlic
  • 1/2         tsp crushed ginger
  • 1            tsp salt
  • 1            tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 2            tbsp HP sauce
  • 1            medium onion
  • 1            medium potato
  • 1            carrot
  • 1            egg

Instructions

Filling

  1. In a medium saucepan add the meat, ginger and  garlic, and cook the meat stirring and breaking the meat till the liquid has evaporated and the meat cooked.
  2. Add salt, black pepper and HP sauce.
  3. Peel and grate the onion, potato and the carrot and add this to the meat.
  4. Let it cool completely.

Pastry

  1. Put the flour in a medium size bowl.
  2. Cut butter into small pieces and rub in the flour.
  3. Add water and mix with a fork.
  4. Form the pastry into a ball with your finger tips.
  5. Lightly flour the rolling pin and board.
  6. Turn out the pastry onto the board, and with light, quick, forward strokes roll out to a 1/4 inch thickness.
  7. Cut the pastry to the required size.  ( I have used a 4 inch round cookie cutter).  Form the scraps into a ball and roll out, and cut out more rounds.
  8. Brush half-way round the rim of each round of pastry.
  9. Put a spoonful of filling in the centre of the pastry.
  10. Bring the edges of the pastry up together in the centre over the filling, and press  gently together all round to seal.
  11. Beat the egg with 1 tbsp water and brush all over the top.
  12. Bake in a  preheated  400 degree oven for 30 minutes till the pastry is a light brown color
  13. Serve hot or cold.

Cornish pasties can be served as an appetizer(small size) or cut the rounds to 6 inch and serve as an entre with a salad.

In England it is served with mashed potato peas and gravy on it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.