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Method :
First make
the shortcrust pastry. Put the flour and salt through a sieve. Then put
it in a large bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces. Add it to the
bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with the ends of you fingers. The
secret of good pastry-making is to keep everything as cold as possible.
When the mixture is like small breadcrumbs, add the water. Do not put
all the water in one place; put a little water all over the pastry
mixture. Mix the pastry with your fingers until it forms little lumps.
Then make it into one large lump, so that the sides of the bowl are
clean. Put the pastry in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before you use
it.
Set the oven
to 180C, Mark 4. Then, with a rolling pin, roll out 4 circles of pastry
about 1/2 cm thick. Peel the potatoes and cut them and the meat into 1cm
squares. Peel and chop the onions. Mix the potatoes, onion and meat
together. Add salt and pepper and stir well. Put a quarter of this
mixture on one half of each piece of pastry, 2cm from the edge. Wet the
edges of the pastry with milk. Fold the top half of each piece of pastry
over the half with the meat on it. Push the edges together tightly. Make
a small cut in the centre of each pastry. Brush each pastry with a
little milk. Put the pasties on a baking sheet. Cook in the oven for 45
minutes at 180C, Mark 4. Then cook for 30 minutes longer at 130C, Mark
1/2. Serve the pasties hot or cold.
Serves 4
Cornwall is
in the southwest of England. Pasties (pronounced in Cornwall with a long
a as in park) have been eaten there for hundreds of years.
They have always been popular because they are easy to carry and they
are easy to eat with the fingers The men who worked on the farms and in
the mines used to eat them at midday for their "crib" - the Cornish word
for lunch. Often the cook marks the letter of the name of the person who
will eat the pasty on one corner. For example, JS for John Smith, RB for
Robert Brown. Then if the men have to stop in the middle of their lunch,
they know which of different things inside them: fish, bacon,
vegetables, eggs, fruit or meat. But today they usually have potatoes,
onions and beef or lamb in them.
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