Light bites • Savoury
Caterina’s Cornish Pasties
Senior Advisor, Workplace Experiences
I’m a sucker for anything in a pastry. I’d eat pastry in a pastry if I could. So when I was first introduced to these about 25 years ago by my mum-in-law, I was hooked. They aren’t super hard to do, but all the dicing for the filling can take some time, so we pretty much only have these at Christmas. And they’ve been a family tradition in my mum-in-law’s family for a couple generations at least, so they bring back memories for everyone. The modern twist now is heated debate around who’s having what sort of sauce on the side, with some more recent hits being sriracha or sambal olek, so that’s a pretty cool fusion for pastry that originated as food for royalty in the 13th century and evolved into snacks for 17th/18th century miners in Cornwall!
Ingredients
- 2 batches pie crust dough, rolled into balls and refrigerated for about an hour
- 1 cup white or yellow turnip, chopped
- 2 cups lean, boneless beef (top round is good), finely diced
- 1 cup onions, coarsely chopped
- 2 cups potatoes, finely chopped
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
Instructions
Step 1
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Step 2
Toss together your filling.
Step 3
Roll out your dough to about ⅛-inch thick and then cut into 6-inch rounds.
Step 4
Put about ¼ cup of filling in each pastry round, moisten edges with water and fold in half to seal.
Step 5
Press seams with fingers or fork.
Step 6
Put the pasties on a baking sheet. In the top of each pasty, cut 2 slits about an inch long.
Step 7
Brush lightly with some egg wash.
Step 8
Bake in middle of oven for 15 minutes at 400°F; reduce heat to 350°F for another 25 to 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
Step 9
Serve hot or at room temperature with any assortment of sauces (HP, sriracha, Frank’s, etc). Most traditional would be a little bit of horseradish and HP sauce, though.
