Cooking For Engineers

[berk84]

I am looking for a pastie recipe, I had one in the portland Saturday Market in Oregon with a lighter flaky-er crust and I preffered that the thicker pie shell pastry crust.
I would like help on finding a quality recipe, and some ideas of things to put in the pastie. They are so easy to eat.

[Guest]

try googling Upper Peninsula Michigan pasty.

you'll find more than you need to know about pasties!

[kgb1001001]

Pocket pies (or pasties) are great ways to wrap up leftovers of lots of different types. Some ideas might be:

Spaghetti sauce (especially with a little mozzarella)
Beef Stew
BBQ Chicken (add more BBQ sauce, some red onions, and cheddar)
Apple or Pear Compote

On my blog I give a recipe for a chicken-mushroom crepe filling -- that is fantastic wrapped up in a pasty crust..

[Watt]

note spellings and capitals please.

There is only one recipe for Cornish pasty.
It comprises:

short crust pastry...no other
raw beef skirt, cut into small strips
raw onions, cut into half rings
raw potato, cut into small cubes
raw swede (Swedish turnip) cut into small cubes
salt and pepper.

All RAW ingredients are put into the pastry, and crimped along the ridge along the middle, then baked in an oven.

Anything else and it is NOT a Cornish pasty.

[Thor]

I thought a pastie was one of those things that strippers put on their boobs because they're too shy to show their nipples?? Tassels optional??

[EngineeringProfessor]

[Thor]

Curiosity got the best of me. As per my slightly aged Webster’s Collegiate:

Pasty (1) – n. (pl. pasties): 1. Pie, especially meat pie; 2. Turnover.
Pasty (2) – adj.: resembling paste, especially pallid and unhealthy in appearance.

And oddly, the only entry for pasties:

Pasties – n. pl.: small round coverings for a woman’s nipples worn esp. by a stripteaser.

So if you’ve become pasty as a result of eating a pasty while wearing pasties, you’ll likely require serious professional help.

[Guest]

OK, if we can be serious for a minute, below is 'the' definitive Cornish pasty recipe & the only one you'll ever need. (note pasty - not pastie!) and comes from a Cornishman friend who has cooked them for many years. Tom Wells - Cornish by birth, upbringing and residence.

A Cornish pasty is considered by the Cornish as an exact science & any deviation will not result in a true representation.

The guest Watt has got it half right. A Devon pasty has the crimping on the top, but the Cornish has it on the side.

Cornwall once had many tin mines, & this is a tin miners snack and was eaten holding the side crust which was then thrown away so the miners didn't ingest arsenic and copper which is found in tin mines alongside the seams of tin. Only Devonians crimp the top.


This makes 2 large ones (1 for hot & 1 for cold-or can be reheated) UK measurements

(For the pastry)
10 oz Plain (all purpose) flour
5 oz butter and lard (50/50 mix)
pinch of salt
pinch of baking powder

(For the filling)
8 oz of skirt beef or chuck steak
1 large potato
1 large onion
piece of swede/turnip the size of a very large chicken's egg
salt & white pepper to taste

Method

Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder
Rub in the fats
Add iced water to make a stiff pastry
Place to one side to 'rest'

Cut the meat into very thin slivers and season well
Slice (not dice) the vegetables very thinly - season well
Cut the pastry into two pieces

Roll out a piece of pastry on a floured surface
Trim to a 10" round (cut round a dinner plate)
Put a quarter of the veg mix on the pastry
Followed by half the meat (evenly spaced out)
Followed by another quarter of veg, and a few knobs of butter

Damp the edges of the pastry & fold in half
and seal the edges together making a half-moon shape. Fold the closed edges plait fashion with a twist of the wrist (crimping)

Make a couple of 'steam holes' top centre with the point of a knife

Repeat the process with the second round of pastry
and the remaining potato, onion and swede.

Put the pasties on a baking sheet & glaze with a beaten egg & place in the centre of a pre-heated oven (400/425F) for about 10 minutes to set the pastry. Turn down to (325/350F) and cook for another hour, cover with foil if the top looks like it's getting too brown.

Remove the pasties from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes.

Now some miners were 'treated' by their women, & sent down below with a 'tiddy oggy' (tiddie oggy) a pasty with one end savoury & the other end sweet with jam or fruit. But that's a whole new different topic.

Now I hope those of you supposedly yearning for a traditional Cornish pasty recipe will actually get down to it & make some. If you do it per the recipe you won't be disappointed.

UK POSTER

[Watt]

how clever you are, I am from Devon, and have always crimped along the middle. Full marks (respect!)

Just one comment, as you rightly said, tin (as mined) is associated with arsenic, but if you have ever been in a mine (of any kind) you will realise that what is there is copious amounts is water, so at least they could clean the dust off. All this nonsense (not from you) about initials carved in the pastry and jam one end is just that, nonsense, though I have a sneaking suspision that 'pasties' were/are filled with anything to hand which takes to long cooking.

cheers
Watt

[Eli Zabeth]

Upper Peninsula Pasties

Introduced in the United States by Cornish miners who immigrated in the 1800's hoping to earn a good living in newly developing mines. When the Cornish came to the copper and iron mines of the Upper Peninsula, they contributed skills that were unknown to many of the other groups. Because they looked up to the Cornish miners for their skills in mining, people tended to copy other of their traditions, including the pasty.

Each ethnic group contributed its own influences in the evolution of the UP pasty. A culinary rivalry developed between miners and others of different nationalities, as each asserted its own mark on the pasty in the way of seasoning and other ingredients. A descendent of Swedish immigrants to the Upper Peninsula, I was until recently under the impression that the pasty was a traditional Swedish food.

The shape and construct of the pasty made it not only portable, but if it should get cold, it would be relatively easy to warm up. In the mine, this was often done by putting the pasty on a shovel and holding it over a head-lamp candle. In the workplace, as pasty wasn't eaten with a fork; it was eaten end to end, held upright to keep the juices in.

The pasty survived the collapse of the mining industry because it had become popular with the major ethnic groups to remain after the mines had closed - the Finns and the Swedes. In the mid-1800's, a small wave of immigrants came from Scandinavia well after the Cornish were established. When a larger wave of Scandinavian miners came 30 years later, they were probably introduced to the pasty by the older Finns and Swedes, rather than from the Cornish. This is probably why the Upper Peninsula pasty is somewhat different from its Cornish ancestor, and why a Swede like myself may have grown up believing that the pasty was a Swedish specialty.

The Upper Peninsula pasty differs from the Cornish pasty in that the vegetables are usually diced rather than sliced, there are more vegetables, and a thinner crust.

http://kenanderson.net/pasties/michigan.html

[Gareth]

How to make a Cornish pasty.

Ingredients

200g short pastry
200g finely diced beef
100c potato
100g Swede
50g onions
salt
fresh black pepper
1 egg

Method
the Beef should be diced up to about 5mm-1cm cubes, minced can be used but it doesn't give the right texture
the potatoes and Swede should be sliced into 1-1.5cm pieces but need to be thin, about 3 mm, they need to be thin as they go into the pasty raw and must cook through properly and finely dice the onion


you should end up with thin pieces of potato and Swede, finely diced onion and small diced beef

which needs to all be mixed together with the salt and pepper

and mixed well together


then roll out your short pastry and cut rounds out, they can be as big or small as you like but the bigger they are the more filling you get.
the pastry needs to be about 3 mm thick and this is an 20 cm plate


pile the raw filling onto 1 half of the pastry and brush all round the edge with beaten egg


then fold the pastry over the top and press firmly together to give a semi circle then crimp or roll the edge to give a good seal


place onto a baking sheet and brush all over with the beaten egg and put into an oven at about 180c for about 1 - 1 1/2 hours, sounds a long time but the filling is all raw and needs to be cooked through well
then serve with anything you like


this recipe gave me 2 pasties this size.

[Guest]

Hi Gareth, beautifully photographed, well done mate!

However, I see this as a recipe you'd make for family/friends, 'far' too much meat for a commercial pasty! And I'd like to see the potato & swede in thinner slivers. Sorry if I'm being picky, it is a national treasure

[jkarle1106]

Way to go Gareth! That's an Michigan Upper Peninsula pasty if I ever saw one. And I've seen and eaten thousands.
The church ladies who make these by the ton in the UP will say if you don't make the crust using beef suet it's really not going to turn out right.

[Watt]

that isn't swede, it is turnip. In a Cornish pasty, the orange swede (sometimes called a Swedish turnip) is used, not the white turnip. And I think the beef skit is thinly sliced, rather than diced, but that is up to you.

thoughts
Watt

[Gareth]