I don’t claim to be an expert on pasties or anything else. In our house we call these Meat Pies. In the British cookbook I got the basic recipe from they’re called Cornish Pasties. It’s a great way to stretch a piece of beef.
You can make these using regular pie crust dough or the more traditional pastry, which has half lard and half butter, a bit of sugar, and an egg yolk added. That’s more similar to what I do for a quiche. I’ve done both, just depending on what I have on hand.
I almost always end up with leftover meat and potatoes and vegetables if I follow my recipe exactly. I cannot figure out how they squeeze all that filling into that little bit of pie crust! Tonight, I made one a half times the pie crust called for (basically the same as 3 pie crusts) and it worked out well. Other times, if I don’t feel like rolling out all the dough, I just bake the extra filling in a small dish along with the meat pies.
I don’t measure much with this recipe, except when making the pie dough. I use “about one steak”, whatever I have around to use up. It’s probably about 3/4 of a pound typically but a little less or more won’t matter much. And obviously you could fill these with quite a variety of stuff. I just tend to make them when I have a lone piece of beef sitting around.
These make a great dinner and can easily be packed for lunches. I freeze the leftovers so we can just pull one out for a lunch.
Meat Pies or Cornish Pasties
Ingredients
- 3/4 pound of beef I’ve used a variety: top round, bottom round, tri tip
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 potato or turnip, peeled and diced
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 egg and 1 Tbs of water, mixed together
Instructions
- Make your pastry dough or pie crust and chill it.
- Chop the meat, onion, carrot, and potato or turnip. Toss together in a bowl and season with the salt and pepper.
- Roll out the dough until it’s about 1/4″ or less thick. I tend to like them thinner, but if you’re not good at rolling out the dough don’t worry about it. It will taste great no matter what!
- Use a bowl or plate to cut circles out of the dough, depending on how many pies you want. For me, this turns out 8 medium pies. The original recipe called this out as 4 larger pies.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Put a portion of the meat mixture into the middle of a circle of dough. Brush the edges with the beaten egg then bring together at the top of the pie and pinch the edges together to form an oval shaped pie with the seam across the top. Cut a couple of slits in each to let the steam escape. Place the pies on a cookie sheet. When you’re all done rolling, filling, and sealing the pies up, use the rest of the egg ix to brush across the top.
- Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 and bake another 45 minutes.
Any leftover filling gets cooked up and then I like to take half a small sourdough round hollowed out and fill it with the leftovers, which is a nice California take on a Cornish dish.
My family has made pasties for a few generations. We make them a lot of them on Christmas Eve. Since I am not fond of turnips, I dice carrots and use fresh parsley as well in the mix. I liked your idea of pressing the seams together at the top of the pasty rather than at the edge like a turnover. I will try that next time we make them. Great blog!