My Stockelsdorf Pasties (after the Cornish art)

We had, had a very nice weekend and I was wondering what to cook for dinner (I am now a full trained houseman), I thought that as we had really enjoyed our Cornish Pasties from Helston, I would make a batch for our evening meal. I was wondering what type of pastry was used to encase the filling as I remembered the pastry was very nice and flaky.  This had lead me down the road of thinking it could have been puff, though I had my doubts, after a discussion with some members of the wildfoodboard.info, I was informed that it wasn’t puff but short crust, but a flaky short crust ( seem to remember “Wor Mam” making this for her pasties, but that had been lost  somewhere in my remembering cells. I also had a look at a lot of recipes and these all confirmed this.

It is also the general opinion that beef skirt is the meat to be used, the other ingredients being turnip, (Swede for the foreigners amongst you) potato, onion, plenty of pepper and salt.

I found a nice recipe in a pie book that I had and with a few twists of my own used that as the basis of my pastry and filling.

So here it is.

Rough puff pastry

425g of flour
100g of lard
100g of butter
Good pinch of salt
Enough water to pull it all together (not too much it should be quite a firm dough)
1 beaten egg to seal and glaze

Method:

Freeze the butter and lard for a couple of hours. Mix the flour and salt into a basin and grate the fats into this, mix in with the back of a knife until it looks like very course bread crumbs, add enough water  and bring together into a ball (do not over knead). Wrap in cling film and chill for half an hour.

While you are waiting make the filling:

300g of beef skirt (my butcher had no skirt so I got some well-marbled rump steak)
225g of turnip
225g of potato
1 medium onion (I used 3 shallots)
1 tbsp. of veg oil
Plenty of pepper
A teaspoon of marigold vegetable stock

Dice all of the vegetables and the beef into uniform sizes, quite small approx. 5mm

Mix together and add a good sprinkling of pepper (some say white, but I like fresh ground black), here my recipe differed from most as this one said add 1 table spoon of oil, this I did as I could see that it would help in the cooking of the filling. I also added a few finely chopped thyme leaves, not a lot but just enough to give it a subtle taste. Normally it a Cornish pasty would have salt added but I used marigold vegetable stock powder to give it the salt content.

So the filling is mixed

Cut the ball of pastry into 4 pieces, form into balls and roll out on a floured board and place a 20cm plate on top and cut around to form 4 discs, I found I had enough off cuts to make another disc so though my recipe said makes 4 mine made 5.

I have been informed that traditionally the true Cornish Pasty has the plait on the side (it was originally not eaten, as it would have been used by the tin miners to hold it and because of the  muck and dirt would be thrown down the mine for the Pixies or whatever that small folk are called that live down the mines ). Mine not being made in Cornwall and up here on the Baltic, pixies are as rare as rocking horse poo on the moon, mine went on the top, I did manage to get a rope type twist, but I will have to practice to get it a bit better, I suppose I would have gotten a “he tries hard but not with a lot of success”.

So filling piled in the middle egg wash round one half of the circle and then joined together at the top and using finger and thumb managed a rope plait (of sorts). Egg wash all over the top and pierce with a knife in a couple of places to allow the steam to escape.

Place them on a baking tray covered with baking paper (or a silicon mat if you’re really up to date)

Put them into a pre-heated oven (fan assisted) at 180°C for about 40 minutes until the they are golden brown, if they are browning too quickly turn off the fan  or reduce the temperature and just use top and bottom heat.

Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.

 

Turn up the oven and place your  oven chips in (I used McCain ones)at the required temperature.

Heat your beans in the microwave (or you can dirty another pot if you wish).

Linda just arrived through the door as the meal was ready, so it was Baltic Pasty with oven chips, baked beans and a splodge of brown sauce.

These below are before the embellishments

Not bad, not bad at all.