Serves: Makes ~6-8 pasties
Cost: ~€3.70
Preparation time: ~45 minutes
Calories: ~400 calories per pasty
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]From the town of Eccles in the last post, I’m going down to the county of Cornwall today. The foot of the British Isles, it’s here you’ll find the national parks of Exmoor and Dartmoor, the latter being the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles‘. I’m told that the moors are quite creepy during the night – that the shapes of bushes and trees play tricks on your mind and make for a less than enjoyable camping experience.
In any case, I’m not here to talk about spectral trees or miserable camping today, I’m here to talk about something which is a bit closer to my heart, and infinitely more delicious – the Cornish Pasty. Now, with this post and the last post, you’re probably starting to form an idea about English cuisine – well, I won’t lie; we eat a lot of pastry. Tarts, pies – both savoury and sweet (which reminds me – if you ever have a chance to visit the town of Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, you absolutely must try a Pork Pie, slices, pastry-clad cakes… but anyway – I do seem to be going off at a tangent here. So, Cornish Pasties – what are they? In a nut-shell, they’re semi-circular pockets of pastry, stuffed with beef, potatoes and usually some other vegetables – most traditionally carrot and swede (also known as rutabaga). In this recipe I’ve added a few extras. Additionally, it’s up to you whether you want to use chunks of beef or minced beef.
Few things can beat a hot, flaky pasty, but they’re also absolutely delicious when cold too, thus making an excellent lunch or picnic food. There’s a story that they used to be popular amongst Cornish miners, and we made with a large “handle” of pastry, so they could eat them in the mines without having to worry about cleaning their hands. They could eat the pasty and then just discard the soot-covered handle. Reading more about pasties on Wikipedia, it appears that they’ve travelled elsewhere in the world, along with the Cornish miners as they emigrated.
Enjoy the post today – I’ll be back again on Monday with another English dish… I’m not entirely sure what yet, but I’ll endeavour to find something which isn’t wrapped in pastry! Have a nice weekend everyone!
Cornish Pasties
[learn_more caption=”Video Recipe”]
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 250g Plain Flour
- 200g Margarine or vegetable shortening
- 1 tsp Salt
- A little milk for brushing
For the filling
- 250g Beef – minced or small chunks
- 1 small Leek
- 1 large Carrot
- 3 medium Potatoes
- 1-2 small Turnips
- 1 large Onion
- 2 tbsps Olive Oil
- 1 tsp dried Thyme
- Salt
- Pepper
You’ll also need
- A food processor
Instructions
- Start off by making the pastry – place the flour and margarine or vegetable shortening into a food processor and then pulse until you achieve a breadcrumb-like consistency. Transfer to a large bowl and add a few tablespoons of water, while stirring, to achieve a dough. Form into a ball, place into a bag or bowl, cover and transfer to the refrigerator. Peel and chop the carrot, turnip and potato into small pieces and place into a large pan of water. Bring to the boil and cook until soft before draining and setting aside.
- Peel, wash and finely chop the leek and onion. Heat the olive oil in a large pan and then fry the leek and onion for a minute or two before adding in the meat. Continue cooking until the meat is done.
- Transfer the carrots, turnip and potato into the pan and mix well. Add in the thyme and salt and pepper the mixture to taste.
- Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius and then remove the pastry from the refrigerator. Roll out on a floured surface to a thickness of about 3 – 4mm and cut into rounds using a cutter with a diameter of about 12-15cm.
- Divide the filling between the pastry rounds and moisten the outside edge of the round before folding them over and pressing the edges together. Seal the edges with a fork before brushing all over with a little milk.
- Place into the pre-heated oven and cook for ~20 minutes, until they’ve turned a rich golden brown. Remove from the oven, then enjoy warm or cool.
It will be my Sunday brunch menu! Looks so yummy!
Thanks Chami – let me know if you try them, and I hope you enjoy them!
yum yum charles! the smell of cornish pasties always fill me with an feeling of hunger and incredible warmth. and that’s just from those “cornwall pasties co” snack bars on the street, especially in winter. your homemade one must have been even more divine. I’m not a fan of margarine or veg shortening though, do you think it would work with butter, or eprhaps lard?
Hi Shuhan – I would really advise *against* using butter. I made them with butter before and the taste was not good. The flavour of butter was all over the dish and it made things much too rich and really not enjoyable.
It would probably work with lard – you can buy something in England called Trex – a non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening which is very popular for pastry… maybe a mixture of 50% trex and 50% lard?
I was very pleased with the filling – I felt like it really had a perfect “pasty” flavour 🙂
good point about all-butter perhaps being too rich! I’ll have to experiment! if not, yes, I agree the filling sounds especially good, and I could probably just as happily just munch down on the filing and call it stew (:
Charles, these are one of the most appetising, cute things I have ever seen both in English cuisine books and on your blog! I have a strange feeling I would finish half of this batch in no time at all. They look highly addictive. I have always dreamt of tasting Cornish pasties. When I was in London I wanted to buy them in a kind of chain shop, but an English friend told me they were disgusting there. I suppose either I make your recipe or I have to go to Cornwall 😉
Hi Sissi – I’m surprised by your reaction, though flattered nonetheless 😀
To be honest, it’s a shame your friend didn’t “let” you try them. There’s a company in England called Ginsters. Real “pasty” afficionados would probably claim that they make terrible pies and pasties but to be honest, I like them a lot. I find them comforting – even standard bakery or chain store places you can get a rough idea of what they’re like, although of course some places can be really bad – perhaps this place had a bad reputation for being really salty maybe?
Well, I hope you have a chance to try them yourself – they often make cheese and onion pasties as well, with potato inside, as well as chicken and mushroom slices, and steak and black pepper slices which have big chunks of meat inside… really good…
God, talking about this is making me salivate 😀
Charles, I especially love all the vegetables you’ve incorporated here – it’s amazing how much you can work in to these delightful looking pastry dumplings. I would not be able to eat nearly as much pastry as the English ;( but I do find it very yummy. The thyme must have smelled delicious while cooking… Have a wonderful weekend Charles – we are off to the Eastern Townships and Vermont for a one week ski holiday with the boys! Cheers.
Hi Kelly – thanks a lot! It is a lot of pastry we eat – it’s nice from time to time, plus you can ram it full of veg and feed it to picky kids if necessary 😀
Have a wonderful ski trip – I can’t say I’m not really jealous!
These look fantastic! Beautiful photos as well 🙂 I agree sometime using butter can be too much! Cheers!
Thanks Jen. I think if you tried these you’d definitely prefer them without butter. It takes over the flavour of the veg and meat which isn’t what you want here.
I LOVE that you made your own pastry. Fabulous! I think that these would go over well here for sure. I wonder, how would mushrooms work in this in place of the carrots and potatoes? Then again, I might be able to tolerate the carrots in this recipe. And I agree with Kelly – your home had to smell fabulous. That Sunday dinner kind of comforting fabulous. Huh – just realized I used “fabulous” three times. I must like these little pastries. 😉
Thanks Kristy 😀 I’m sure mushroom would work great. You can get other types of “pie” called steak and mushroom slices. They have chunks of stewed beef, with a rich, slightly creamy mushroom sauce inside… they’re really good… oh, how I miss British baked goods sometimes 😀
Charles these look wonderful and I love that they are baked. Are they also sometimes fried? Any filling would do don’t you think, lots of veggies? Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Hi Suzi – I’ve never heard of them being fried – not sure how they’d turn out. You’re absolutely right – they’d be great with any stuffing, though this one – well, the “base” of meat, potato and turnip – is the most common and well-known 🙂
These do look delicious Charles. When I was at University I organized a conference for Medieval Studies (I studied Art History) and we hosted an authentic Medieval dinner, the first course was Mushroom Pasties. Thank you for that lovely memory; I’m sure your pasties are far more tasty than plain old mushrooms, and from what I recall (seems like a hundred years ago now) the pastry was not nearly as flaky as yours! Lovely!
Thanks Eva – I love the sound of your medieval dinner. Sounds like such fun! I think even mushrooms alone would have been delicious – I bet if you went all out and used a wide variety of mushrooms it would be extra cool (though perhaps not so “medieval” anymore if you start using things like shiitake! Haha… thanks for the idea 🙂
Such nicely shaped pasties too … I bet they were delicious.
Thanks A_Boleyn. You can’t beat a good pasty… that’s the true-Brit inside me talking though 😀
Hi Charles! I love how you put various vegetables in this recipe, instead of just one or two. I always think of a way to include (tons of) veggies that are not so visible for the kids. I’m sure they would enjoy this. Again, your dough is beautiful… and thanks for your response about the tip!
Hi Nami! The good thing is, because everything is chopped up so finely and baked in well with the filling you don’t even notice them at all. You could just tell someone it’s a meat pasty and by the time they’ve eaten 3 they’d still be none the wiser that they just ate a carrot and a turnip – lol 😀
Beautiful pastry, Charles, and these look so, so good. I don’t think I’ve had a proper Cornish Pastie….need to remedy that.
I’m out spreading a little blogging love today, Charles. You can check it out here: http://bitsandbreadcrumbs.com/2012/03/09/with-love-from-betsy/ 🙂
Ooh, thanks Betsy – sorry I didn’t reply until now. Been so busy recently! Thanks for the nominations – always nice to know someone’s thinking of me 🙂
What I so love about food is that every nationality has some type of twist to various recipes. These remind me of empanadas, just like your other post reminded me of rugelach! And so interesting to read that the English like their pastry!! I think I’d definitely like these too!!
Thanks Linda – it’s so true! When I went to China I had the Chinese equivalent of a pizza – quite a dense dough topped with a lot of meat and some veg, no cheese or sauce. They claimed that they were the original inventors and then Marco Polo stole the idea from them… who’s to know?! 😀
Hi Charles, I’m very busy and sick these days but I couldn’t miss this: I must tell you that this is in my must-make british recipes’ list..I’m glad you posted it. I just finished dinner but the photos in this post are so good that I feel like I want one of this pasties.
I was under the impression they were called “pastries”, I mispelled it the first day and it got stuck…my husband is always correcting me…
Hi Nada – I hope you’re feeling better these days! I do hope you’re able to make these too… I’m sure they’d go down well with your husband 😀
I love little pies like this. This looks so delicious. Have a wonderful – if not creepy weekend away. I’ll be thinking about creepy shadows and such now – thanks! NO seriously, hope your weekend is restful. I am on Spring Break – whoo hoo! Sleeping in ,cooking, blogging, and mostly hanging out!
Thanks Linda, sorry I didn’t reply until now… been so busy. Still – now it’s the weekend again, which is never bad 😀
Okay my friend.. I’ve heard of beef patties and pork patties.. but never cornish patties :). Just look how delicious these are. Now I will admit, I am not a huge pattie person, but for you I would experiment and try this 🙂
Thanks Kay – let me know if you try them – they’re delish 🙂
Had some trouble this morning making my comment …. I typed out something quite lengthy and it disappeared. Anyway, these take me back to my younger days where I had some really good ones and when I saw them here, I was very excited but unfortunately, they didn’t taste as good as I remembered. But then the ones here are bland, starchy inside and have been skimped of meat and I am a meatarian 🙂
Now these look like something I could really sink my teeth into and not discover a huge hollow inside. Bookmarking this for sure! Thanks!
By “here”, I meant in my country, not “here’ on this blog …. I reread that and it sounded so wrong. Apologies.
Haha, you’re too sweet – I hadn’t actually thought of any other meaning than the one you intended… your country 🙂
Oh definitely – even in England, you have to make sure you spend a good few coins to get a “decent” pasty. If you go for the cheapest ones you’ll get a puffed out pocket of bad pastry with literally the thinnest scraping of meat imaginable inside… not even any veg… yuck!
Lovely, Charles! But, of course, these days you might get into trouble calling them Cornish when they were made across the Channel. 😀 It must be my English genes, but I don’t think there is any food that isn’t improved by having pastry wrapped around it!
Yeah, bah – damn humbug EU bureaucrat spoilsports. Still – I’m not marketing them so I think I’m safe this time :D. Brits sure to love pastry don’t they… When I think about it, there’s just so many of our beloved cakes and snacks which consist of pastry 😀
This is a kid friendly, chock filled with veggies kinda meal. Love all the vegetables hidden in this delicious pasty 🙂
Hi Kiran – definitely! As I said to Nami… you can easily eat 3 of these and not even realise that you’ve just wolfed down a turnip and carrot 😀
Oh yum. I just love Cornish Pastries. You used to be able to buy them here in pie shops but I haven’t seen them for years. Where did they go? At least I now know how to make my own. xx
Hi Charlie – more to the point, what happened to pie shops! I remember when pie shops actually existed. All manner of meat and veg stuffed pastry delights on sale for lunches and dinners alike… they just seemed to vanish and got replaced by pre-packaged supermarket trash-pies 🙁
I have only had an authentic pasties once in Bath, England! They were delicious. Your recipe takes me back down to that wonderful memory land 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Yudith. I used to live very close to Bath… just 20 minutes or so away. Did you visit the roman baths when you were there? They’re so cool… so fascinating!
Yes I did, it was pretty cool Charles 🙂
Hi Charles, I’m loving the British food series and yes, very few things can beat a well made flaky pastry! The thing is, every time I see a cute little snack, I think whether it could be good as party food; and these would work so well, especially to feed a crowd!
Thanks Gourmantine – definitely. Sometimes Cornish pasties are absolutely enormous… the size of half a dinner plate, but they can definitely be scaled down and converted to little appetisers!
I love little meat pies and yours sound nice with all the vegetables.
Thanks Karen 🙂
Love how you incorporate all those vegetables in with the meat. Your pies look so picture perfect.
Thanks Norma! I used to eat way too many pasties when I was younger… It’s probably a good thing I don’t live in England anymore 😀
I love anything wrapped in pastry. These little pastries look delicious! They look almost like little dumplings–so adorable.
Thanks Kyleen – you gotta give them a try… they’re just awesome! A perfect lunchtime dish!
These look great… If one day I come over, I’d like this as a first course… Don’t ask about the other two, I’ll need at least a couple of months to choose from all your amazing recipes!
Haha, thanks Fati – you don’t think these might be too heavy as a starter? Well, who am I to judge… I drank 3 and a half bowls of gazpacho as a starter at a friend’s house tonight and then proceeded to wade into a potato tortilla 😀
Hahaha… I come from a background where a starter is eating half a plate of the main meal…. then the main meal is eating another 3 plates of the main meal…. and dessert is a huge mug of tea with lots and lots of baqlawa (and other sweet treats) 😀
What an interesting post, Charles! I really love the pastry dough: easy, with just a few ingredients. All the vegetables for the filling make it perfect, why I never thought of adding a rutabaga to any of the pastry fillings?! I can taste the flavor! Turnips are great choice too. I shell try it. Thanks for the recipe.
Thanks Marina – I can well imagine that it would be excellent with chopped portobello mushroom, maybe some eggplant as well as a filling, if you wanted a completely vegetarian version. Let me know if you try it… I’d love to know what you think!
I just had a “Lean Cuisine” (prepackaged meal, formerly known as a TV dinner) but oh how I wish that it was one of your pasties. They look absolutely delicious…while I can’t say the same about my Lean Cuisine. (It basically fills the void!) Have a great day Charles!
Lean Cuisine – eek – two words which strike terror into the hearts and souls of foodies everywhere 😀
We saw these all over Ireland when we went and of course never got around to having one. Shame on us, really. They look great and I’m glad for the reminder.
Aw, that’s too bad – still, if ever you decide to go to England you should definitely try to seek out a store selling good ones… that or make some yourself! Hope you try it – let me know!
YUMMY! I love Cornish pasties 🙂 I’ll have to try your recipe. could you do me a favor and send the measurements for the French press again? I wrote them down on a piece of paper that seems to have disappeared. Thanks 🙂
~Melissa
Thanks Melissa – do let me know if you try them – they’re really good… I don’t know many people who dislike them 🙂
I’ve never tried a pastie but this guy from the gym talks about this restuarant in town that makes them. Now I can tell that gym guy that I can make them fresh at home with wholesome ingredients. Love how you added fresh vegetables with the meat, very colorful.
Thanks Lisa – I’ve had them made with wholewheat flour before too – that was really good too… I’d recommend that for an even healthier version!
How pretty your pasties are — must be the milk and the perfect circles.
Thanks Sharyn – so sweet of you to say 🙂
We love pasties and I smiled when I saw this as on the flight home last night Big Man was complaining that he hadn´t got to eat a Cornish Pasty while we were in the UK. No excuses now, I´ll be making some!
Ha! This sounds familiar! The rare times I get a chance to go home to England I always have a list the length of my arm of things I want to eat. I usually end up eating maybe 10% of the things on it. I still haven’t got around to having an English kebab. Last time I had one was years ago… It used to be my “friday night treat” after finishing up at working my second job in the bar. I got paid weekly in cash from that job and I was dirt poor so I used to treat myself to a kebab and then take it home and eat it with a knife and fork, on a plate… all very civilised, lol 😀
You know Charles , ever since I started blogging I have learnt so much about the cuisines of different countries but what surprised me is how many recipes that different cuisines across the globe seem to share..
Your cornish pastries are so similar to indian sambooseh and in consept to arabic sfeeha.
Thank you for sharing this
Hi Sawsan – I feel the same… I’ve learned so much about different foods and food cultures… it’s amazing! I agree – it’s so interesting how places so far away can share similar looking dishes – these are also a little similar to pierogi I think – something similar in Eastern Europe!
I love all of the parallels in different cultures! I’ve always called these delicious little pasties “meat pies”. I think I like the term pasties better. 🙂 The filling is a little different with the leeks and the turnips and the lack of heat, but everything else is similar. No matter what you called these are tasty and wonderful bites! Interesting tidbits about the Cornish miners.
Thanks MJ – there’s something so tasty about meat pies isn’t there? Too bad pastry isn’t “healthy” 😀
Your sister is visiting us in Indiana this week and I think I might try and make these as a little surprise for her! I got to babysit little Jia Jia tonight and just fell in love with her. Baby William is adorable… congratulations! I love your blog and hope we will meet some day! Heather
P.S. Please don’t mention this to your sister yet and also, if you know any other foods that would be a nice treat for her please let me know.
Hi Heather – thanks so much for dropping by! Glad you were able to view my site finally… my sister mentioned she was trying to show it to you I think but I was having some technical issues earlier! Did you have a chance to make the pasties? I hope they turned out ok!
More foods – well I would really recommend making a Shooter’s Sandwich – it’s SO good. Sometimes I make a vegetarian version and put pesto, mozarella, sliced tomato and grilled aubergine in the middle instead of steak. So yummy! Alternatively, you could make Eccles Cakes – I’m sure she’d get a kick out of those, they’re so delicious!
If you could get your hands on some good fish… preferably cod or haddock, then I’d recommend fish and chips. If you use a good beer batter then it’s so good… make some onion rings too… it was probably a long time since my sister had some tasty fish and chips, although I’m not sure if she’s a big fan. She seems to waver between sometimes thinking it’s greasy and disgusting and sometimes thinking it’s wonderful, haha! 🙂 I’m afraid I’ve never been able to perfect good chips so far, but you could always buy some ready-made frozen ones… the beer batter would be the star of the show!