Early autumn Cornish pasties recipes

Ingredients:
* For the pastry
* 500 g plain flour , plus extra for dusting
* sea salt
* 250 g cold unsalted butter
* 1 large free-range egg , beaten
* For the filling
* 350 g skirt steak
* 1 white onion , peeled
* 1 white potato , peeled
* 1 small courgette
* 1 small carrot , peeled
* 200 g butternut squash , cut into 1cm cubes
* 1 whole nutmeg , for grating
* sea salt
* white pepper
* a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme , leaves picked
* olive oil
*

Ingredients:
These pasties are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. They’re delicious, homely, and light years away from the everyday ones on the high street. The recipe isn’t difficult at all, but please make sure you use skirt steak and chop up the meat and veg exactly how I’ve said, because that is going to create the perfect equation for what happens inside the pastry case and ensure that all the filling ingredients cook at the same time. Feel free to swap out some of my key autumn veg to reflect the season you are in, using peas, broad beans or asparagus in spring and other root veg in the winter. One of these with salad, mustard and beer is pure happiness, just go easy with the rest of the day’s meals to balance out that rich pastry.

Pour the flour into a bowl, season it with a pinch of salt, then use your thumbs and forefingers to rub in the butter. Add 200ml of water and use your hands to quickly mix it up. As it comes together, squeeze, hug and pat it together crudely and imperfectly. Add a splash more water here if need be, but please don’t overwork it.

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Cut the steak and the vegetables into 1cm dice, then put into a
bowl, finely grate over a quarter of the nutmeg and add a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Finely chop the rosemary and thyme leaves together and add them to the bowl of filling mixture. Drizzle in a little olive oil, then mix well and put aside.

Cut the pastry into 6 equal pieces and roll each one into a ball. Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour, then pat and push each piece of pastry out to the thickness of a pound coin, dusting and turning as you go. Repeat until you have 6 rounds roughly 22cm in diameter. Get a little filling, compact it in your hand, and place it in the middle of one of the pastry rounds, leaving a border around the edge.

Drizzle with a little olive oil, then brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg and confidently fold the pastry over the meat and vegetables to make a semicircle. Make 5 more pasties the same way and put them on a baking tray dusted with flour.

Pep talk: Look at the picture next door. You can either put the filling right in the middle and bring both sides of the pastry up and together, or you can put it to one side then pull the other half of the pastry over. Once you’re done, feel where the filling is and use your thumb to press down and seal it around the edges. You might make a mistake and make a few holes, but you can patch those up and it will still taste nice.

Brush the pasties all over with egg wash and cook in the oven for around 30 to 35 minutes, or until golden and delicious.

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