The Cornish Pasty

It is a PASTY not a pastry.

The traditional Cornish pasty has a special secret. It would have meat at one end and fruit filling at the other end. The Cornish wife not only prepared a meal in an edible envelope but a meal and a sweet dessert - two in one. How ingenious!!

This pasty originated in Cornwall and with the decline of the mining industry, many Cornishmen were forced to emigrate to the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, taking the pasty recipe with them.

Originally the CRUST was not to be eaten. "The story goes that, covered in dirt from head to foot (including some arsenic often found with tin), they could hold the pasty by the folded crust and eat the rest without touching it, discarding the dirty pastry. The pastry they threw away was supposed to appease the knockers, capricious spirits in the mines who might otherwise lead miners into danger.^[5]. Pasties were also popular with farmers and labourers, particularly in the North East of England, also a mining region." (Wikipedia)

In 2010 I went back to Cornwall again with Judy Wong Liong Yung to be with our former Methodist missionaries to Sarawak.

We had a chance to eat Cornish Pasties .



Cornish Pasty Ingredients -Recipe

For the Pastry ( This is for Shortcrust)

• One and a half Cups Plain Flour
• Lard or vegetable fat
• Pinch of salt
• Water

For the pasty filling

• Chuck steak or skirt
• Two Large potatoes
• Half a large swede (turnip as second best)
• One large onion
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Water

The Pastry
Place flour and salt in a bowl, rub in the fat, until the mixture is so fine that it falls through the fingers. Tip mixture onto a lightly floured table top. With your index finger make a well in the centre of the mixture. Add water a little at a time until it forms a pliable but stiff dough. The Cornish Pasty Filling
Finely chop the steak. Dice the potato, swede and onion. You may prefer to slice them. Add seasoning. Mix all in a bowl or to be really authentic use your kitchen table top.
Using a floured table top roll out half the dough to a circle the size of a plate. Make a mound of the filling in the centre of the dough. Dampen round the edge of the dough with either water, or milk. Fold over the dough, to make a half moon shape, crimping the edges. Make a slit to let out steam. Brush with beaten egg to glaze.