The recipe I’m using for this is years old, well before the legislation that came in in 2011 when the “Cornish Pasty” was given protected status. Pasties have to be made to a specific recipe and in a particular place in order to be referred to as cornish pasties these days – so this, well, doesn’t qualify!
Simple ingredients often make for the best tasting food. We’ve made pasties before, but always added other veggies, which I’m not a huge fan of. So! This one is perfect for me. I love me some tatties and meat! Although I have been coerced into adding swede.
If you want to buy ready rolled pastry, you’ll get two pasties out of a sheet if you make rectangular ones instead, so you’ll need 4 rolls.
Ingredients
- 4 sheets of ready rolled pastry (or about 600g of home-made)
- 450g Beef
- 4/5 Medium Potatoes
- 3 Small Onions
- 1 Small Swede (or half a large one if you have a use for the other half)
- 20g Butter (or baking spread)
- Teaspoon Salt
- Teaspoon Pepper (more if you prefer a peppery pasty)
- 1 Egg
Method
- Cut 8 rounds of pastry about 22cm in diameter. If you made your own, roll it to 1/4″ thick (1/2cm)
- Chop the meat finely.
- Cut the onion, swede and potato into tiny pieces and add to the bowl with the meat.
- Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.
- Leave for about half an hour so some of the water is drawn out by the salt.
- Divide the mix between the pastry rounds you made. Lay it in the centre.
- Add small dots of butter or baking spread.
- Add egg to the edge of the pastry and fold over.
- Press the edges together firmly, crimping slightly with your fingers.
- Brush over all the pasties with beaten egg.
- Bake at 200C for 40 minutes.
