Picnic Pasties
What’s a pasty?
Cornish pasties were the perfect packed lunch for the tin mine workers in Cornwall; hence the full name. |
A filling wrapped in pastry, they were – and still are! – easy to prepare. Nowadays, with a leafy salad, they make a perfect picnic lunch.
The pastry can be either puff, flaky or shortcrust; whichever you prefer. You can either make it yourself or buy ready to use.
You can make tiny ones like they do in Spain with fillings like spinach, cheese and chorizo, or you can make them fit for a hungry tin worker, like the traditional Cornish ones.
If you’re using 500 g of pastry you should get 4 man-sized ones – or 8 for children.
Roll out the pastry and cut it out using a plate so that you have 4, 6 or 8 circles. Put the filling ingredients in the centre of the circle. Brush the edges of the circle with beaten egg and then carefully bring up the edges to the centre to cover the filling. Pinch the pastry between your fingers to create a good seal. Glaze with beaten egg.
Make a tiny ventilation hole in the centre of each pasty and bake on a greased tray at 200 degrees C until the pastry is golden and the filling cooked through.
The Cornish variety were traditionally made with braising steak, potato onion and swede (called turnip in Cornwall). There were – and still are! – lots of variations in the recipe but these are the main ingredients. Depending on the state of the family’s economy, they would have more meat than vegetables, or more vegetables than meat!
All the ingredients for the filling are chopped into small dice so that they cook inside the pastry shell in a hot oven.
Certain other fillings will need some pre-cooking - spinach, for example, to get the moisture out; tomatoes to soften and split.
Cook 450 g of spinach over a gentle heat until all the excess moisture has evaporated and then put in the pastry circles with some cheese – goats cheese, cottage cheese or melty Fontina is good. A grating of nutmeg is also good with spinach, or some crunchy pine nuts.
Try 200 g of chopped tomatoes, softened in a little garlic oil and put in the pasties with some salami or chorizo and mozzarella cheese slices.
No braising steak for a traditional Cornish? Try some chopped ham or gammon. No onion? Use a finely chopped leek instead.
Left over chicken curry from the night before? Wrap it in pastry and make a chicken curry pasty to serve with cool yoghurt dip.
Making your own pastry? Add some cheese.
Prefer a sweet version? Make a sweet pastry and fill with sliced apples or an apple and blackberry mix, or apple and walnut or sultanas. Or use puff pastry and add sugar to the fruit mix. These are also referred to as apple turnovers.
Yes, the variations are only limited by your imagination!
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