Cornish Pasties

Makes 2

Ingredients:

Method:

First make the pastry. Sieve the flour into a large bowl, add the salt and stir. Add the butter, and with your fingertips rub the butter into the flour using light movements. Keep rubbing in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, without any lumps. Add half of the egg yolk and mix with a round-ended knife, then add the water, a little at a time, and mix together until it starts to come together.

Then use your fingers to finish bringing the dough together into a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill for 20-30 minutes whilst preparing the vegetables for the filling: everything needs to be chopped into small dice of around 5mm size. Prepare each vegetable in turn, placing them all into a bowl once you’ve done so. Finally prepare the meat: again this needs to be diced into very small pieces around the same size as the vegetables if using beef, slightly bigger if using lamb. Add the meat to the bowl, add the olive oil, mix everything around and season well with salt and pepper.

Unwrap the pastry and divide the ball into two. On a lightly floured work surface roll the pastry out, one piece at a time, to a few mm thick. Use the plate or bowl to cut around to give a circle of pastry ideally around 200mm diameter. Place some of the filling on one half of the pastry, leaving 1cm around the edge. Dampen the edge of the pastry with water, then fold the other half over, crimping the edges together to seal. You should how have a semi-circular pasty. Repeat the process with the other piece of pastry and filling. Place the pasties onto a lightly greased baking tray, and make a little slit in the top of each one with a sharp knife. Brush with beaten egg, and pop in the oven: they will need around 15 minutes at 200oC (fan oven 180oC), gas mark 6, then reduce the heat to 180oC (fan oven 165oC), gas mark 4 for a further 30-35 minutes. Can be eaten hot or warm – be very careful to let them cool for few minutes if eating straightaway as the filling will be dangerously hot.