Cornish Pasty

Since I've already offended a bunch of people with my entry on Irish Soda Bread, I figured why not offend some people from Cornwall too.

Be careful how you pronounce Pasty-it's Pahs-TEE not pastey - that's another blog not mine. Cornish Pasties were supposedly created as lunches for miners.  They needed something that would fit in their lunch boxes and be easy to eat - guess they got tired of sandwiches.

The first Cornish Pasty I ate was a few years ago at the West Cornwall Pasty Co in Covent Gardens in London. I know it's a chain and I generally don't like chain restaurants (if you can even call chain restaurants-restaurants) but in Europe they seem to have some good chain restaurants. After I came home, I was craving Cornish Pasties. I tried to find a recipe and could not find one that got the pastry right. I finally found one in Nigella Lawson's book. She doesn't call it a pasty, but that's what it tasted like to me.

Here is where the offending part comes in...Now I'm sure you're really supposed to use lard for it to be a real Cornish Pasty but I'm not really too into lard.  It's bad enough that I'm using vegetable shortening. I think that is why Nigella doesn't call it a pasty but I'm calling it a pasty.

Nigella's recipe uses a different sort of filling but I think you can use any sort of filling you want. I've used ground turkey, with potatoes and carrots. But this time I decided to go vegan (sort of-Worcestershire sauce has anchovies).

Cornish Pasty

For the pastry dough:

1 2/3 c flour
1/4 solid vegetable shortening
6 T cold butter (cut into pieces)
4 T ice water
1 egg beaten (for brushing)

Mix the flour, shortening, and butter into the food processor bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour. Remove bowl from refrigerator and process until dough looks cornmeal-ish. You still want a few small pieces of butter. Slowly add the ice water.  You may need to use more water. It should look like this:

It should clump together when you press it.

Divide dough in half onto plastic wrap. Push dough together until it forms a disk. Chill for at least 1/2 hour.

Now for the filling:

1 onion chopped

2 T olive oil

2 carrots diced

2 small beets diced (roasted in foil for about 1 hr-I used one red and one golden)

1 medium potato diced (I used a russet)

2 cloves garlic chopped

1 c fresh spinach

1/2 c wine

1 T Worcestershire sauce

1 t fresh thyme

salt/pepper to taste 

Saute the onion in skillet until turning to brown.  Add carrot and potato and cook until almost tender - about 10 minutes. Add garlic let cook for a few seconds and then add wine and Worcestershire sauce. Cook until wine is almost evaporated. Add beets. Remove from heat and toss in spinach. Set aside to cool.

 

Homemade Worcestershire sauce - real easy to make

Roll dough out into a general rectangle shape (mine came out to be 9ishx12ish) Chill again in refrigerator. I rolled mine right on the silpat and the other dough (top) between to pieces of plastic wrap.  By rolling it out between the plastic wrap, it makes it easier to put the top on.

Place filling on top of dough leaving about a 1" margin. Wet the 1" border with a little water. Place second pastry on top of vegetables.  Fold over edge and seal with a fork.

Poke air vents in the top with a fork. Brush top with beaten egg. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

You can really use any vege that you have on hand. Parsnips would be nice. Instead of spinach, kale or chard would also be good. What's really good about this recipe is that you can make the dough ahead of time as well as the filling. I would not assemble it ahead of time because I think the dough get soggy.