The English are notorious for their bad food. This reputation is not entirely untrue, but the English do make good savory pies and pasties.Cornwall is in South West England, and interestingly actually has a strong culinary tradition, particularly involving seafood. But since I'm in Pittsburgh, I will not be making any seafood.
Instead I'll make some pasties. I found a template for a generic Cornish Pasty, then modified it and resized it for my purposes.
Here is what I came up with.
Filling Ingredients:
• 1.5 lb of ground beef
• 3 small/medium potatoes (chopped into small cubes)
• 2 cups (3 medium sized carrots) of carrots (chopped into small cubes)
• 1 medium onions (chopped into small cubes)
• 1/4 cup of melted butter
• 2 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of pepper
Pastry Ingredients:
• 6 cups of flour
• 2 cups of shortening
• 1/3 cup of cold water
• 2 tsp of salt
• Eggwash
Steps:
1. This is a very English recipe. So mix all the filling ingredients together. Congratulations you're done with the filling!
2. Add the salt to the flour. Cut the shortening into manageable spoonful lumps and mix it with the flour. After the flour and shortening has fully combined, it should appear lumpy. At this point, just slowly add the cold water while you continue to mix. The pastry dough should stick together, but break apart quite easily.
3. Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Roll the dough out into thin sheets.
4. Put the filling onto the sheet of dough, close, and make three incisions on the pastie. And brush the pastie with eggwash.
5. Preheat the oven to 375°, and bake the pasties for 60 minutes.
Additional Variation:
If you're lazy like me, and like pies, you can also put some filling in an oven-safe pot, then throw the pastie dough on top. Then bake it in the same manner described above.
