Cornish Pasties

The Cornish Pasty (pronouced pass-tee) is quite popular in mining areas. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Mesabi Iron Range of Minnesota, Lead (Leed), South Dakota, and Butte, Montana. You can order them from a number of UP websites. On the Iron Range of MN, where I grew up, they are used by a number of charities (churches especially) as fund raisers. Was my dad's favorite lunch box meal.

Following recipe varies from the basic a little (addition of pork and carrots) but there seem to be as many variations as there are cooks.

Cornish Pasties
(for six)

Pastry: *

6 cups flour
1 Tbsp salt
1 cup lard
water, enough to make workable dough

Filling:

1 lb. Round steak, cut up
1 lb. Pork steak, cut up
1 cup Rutabaga, cut up
2 cups onions, sliced thin
3 cups potatoes, cut up
Pat of butter for each pasty

Directions: **

Roll out portions of dough to size of a dinner plate. On one half of circle of dough, place in order, rutabaga , potatoes , carrots, meat, and onions. Salt and pepper each layer lightly. Top with a pat of butter.
Fold other half of dough over filling, crimp edges (wetting the edges lightly before folding will help seal) Poke 2 or 3 vent holes in top and bake on cookie sheets for about an hour at 350°.



* Use your favorite Pastry (pie crust) recipe..this one is not low in fat (another one I have also includes
suet in addition to lard). I also make the dough rounds smaller, about the size of a luncheon plate –
roughly 8” in diameter. This should give about 8 pasties of adequate size.

** There are different ways of preparing filling. One thinly slices the meat and veggies and layers
them, as in recipe above.

The other (which I like and use) dices the ingredients (about a 3/8” dice) mixes them all together, salts
and peppers in the mixing bowl and places amount needed on each dough round.


Some people use a gravy over the pasty - others use catsup or just an additional dollop of butter.

Here are interesting links for the pasty. Notice the use of ground meat....to a purist this is sacrilege.

http://www.hu.mtu.edu/vup/pasty/recipes.htm

http://www.pasty.com/