Cornish Pasty
Cornwall's famous hand pie: raw beef, potato, swede and onion seasoned only with salt and pepper, sealed in a crimped half-moon of pastry and baked in its own juices.
Method
Put the flour and salt in a bowl, add the cold butter and lard and rub them in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Add the cold water a little at a time, stirring with a fork, until it clumps into a dough, then knead for about 30 seconds until smooth. Wrap and chill for . Cold, rested pastry rolls without tearing and bakes crisp.
Add in this stepPlain flour 250 gSalt (for the pastry) ½ tspUnsalted butter, cold and diced 60 gLard, cold 60 gIce-cold water 70 ml
Peel the potato and swede and cut them into thin, irregular 1 cm slivers with a knife, shaving them off as the Cornish do. Finely chop the onion, and trim the beef of any gristle and cut it into 1 cm cubes. Don't soak the potato: its starch thickens the juices. Wash your hands and board straight after handling raw meat.
Add in this stepBeef skirt or chuck steak (raw) 200 gFloury potatoes 200 gSwede (rutabaga) 100 gOnion 80 g
Heat the oven to 200 °C (180 °C fan). Divide the pastry into Ø 22 cm ×2 and roll each piece on a floured surface into a 4 mm thick circle; cutting round a plate gives a neat edge.
On one half of each circle, layer half the swede and potato and season with salt and pepper, then the onion and beef and season again, then the rest of the potato, leaving a 2 cm border. Brush the border with water, fold the pastry over and press firmly to seal, then crimp: fold the edge over itself in small twists between thumb and finger all the way along. There must be no gaps, or the juices escape.
Add in this stepSalt (for the filling) 1 tspCoarsely ground black pepper ¾ tsp
Line 30×40 cm ×1 baking tray(s) with baking paper and lay the pasties on them. Brush all over with beaten egg and cut a small steam hole in the top of each with the tip of a knife.
Add in this stepEgg, beaten (to glaze) 1
Bake (oven) at 200 °C for , then turn the oven down to 165 °C (145 °C fan) and bake for more. They are done when deep golden and a skewer pushed through the steam hole slides easily into soft potato. With a thermometer, the centre should read at least 75 °C.
ovenLeave on the tray for before eating; the juices settle and the pasty cools enough to hold in your hand.
Cook's tip
A true Cornish pasty has no carrot and the filling is never pre-cooked: the raw ingredients steam inside the pastry and make their own rich gravy. Be generous with the pepper. If you can't find swede, use turnip cut the same way.
Cooking it at camp
Bake the pasties at home, cool them and carry them in the cooler. At camp, reheat them wrapped in foil at the edge of the grill or in a covered Dutch oven for 15–20 minutes and eat them by hand like the miners did. Baking raw-filled pasties at camp is not recommended because the heat is hard to control.