Going back to my roots, yeah!

 I was fortunate enough to grow up in Cornwall, the far south-western tip of the UK. It is England's beach country, beautiful beaches, some surf-pounded, some hidden calm coves, quaint working harbors, jagged cliffs marked with ruins of old tin mines, soggy moorlands with rocky crests, and windy, overgrown lanes leading tiny villages nestled in green valleys {insert wistful sigh}. 

Going back home is a treat, and one that sadly I haven't been able to indulge in for far too long (curse you Covid). But last week my son came up with an idea of an activity for the weekend - making Cornish pasties. (I suspect that his motivation was more directed at satisfying his appetite than soothing my homesickness, but what the heck, I'll take comfort wherever I can get it at the moment! And it isn't often that he wants to cook with his mother, so that was fun too!)

Cornish pasties are a traditional lunch that wives would make for their husbands who were off to work down the tin and copper mines or China Clay quarries in centuries gone by. It's a pastry shell wrapped around goodies all cooked within to beautiful perfection. Originally, the pasty was designed to have savory treats like meat and vegetables in one end, and something sweet in the other half, so that a hungry worker, eating from one end to the other, would get a whole meal in one package, including dessert. Nowadays, they are generally all savory. The most traditional filling is as shown here, with root vegetables, potatoes and beef. But these days, you can get all sorts of things inside pasties. In Cornwalls well-touristed harbor towns, pasty shops do a roaring trade, and people can be spotted chomping away on their wares on benches along the quayside, while cheeky seagulls wait in hope of dropped crumbs. 

This is by no means a quick supper, but it is a fun activity and way easier than it looks - the contents are all cooked in the oven within the pastry, so the only prep revolves around lots of chopping, and making the pastry. Even the latter could be skipped if you're in a hurry, and have some ready prepared pastry handy. The key is making sure that the veg is chopped uniformly and small; hard lumps of uncooked potato are no-one's idea of a good time. 

Whatever you choose to put inside, have fun with it, get the kids involved, and, if you are anything like us, make a HUGE mess in the kitchen, before enjoying the yummy fruits of your labor!

Cornish Pasties
Makes 6

Serves 4-6 people, depending on appetite :-)

For pastry:
3 1/4 cups AP flour
salt
8 oz cold unsalted butter
1 large egg, beaten

For filling:
12 oz skirt steak
1 onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 medium potatoes, peeled
1 large (or two small) purple-topped turnips, peeled
1 large rutabaga, peeled
whole nutmeg
salt and ground white pepper
olive oil

1. To make the pastry, put the flour in a large bowl, season with a pinch of salt, and rub in the butter with thumb and fingers until it looks like coarse crumbs.

2. Add 3/4 cup of water and use your hands to quickly incorporate it into the flour mixture. Bring the mixture together until it makes a smooth, but not sticky, dough, adding a little more water if needed. Be careful not to overwork it, as it will make the pastry tough.

3. Preheat the oven to 400F (220C). 

4. Cut the steak, potato, turnip and rutabaga into 1/3" cubes, no larger! It takes time, but it's worth it! Mix together in a large bowl and grate some nutmeg over to taste. Season with a large pinch of salt and some ground pepper. Drizzle in a little olive oil to moisten.

5. Cut the pastry into 6 equal pieces and then roll each into a ball. On a surface dusted with flour, roll each out into a circle, roughly 8" in diameter, an 1/4" thick. You can make the circles more exact by cutting them with a 8" baking tin.

6. Take some of the filling mixture and squeeze it together in your hands to compact it a little. Put each handful of filling over one half of each circle, leaving a 1/2" border around the edge. Drizzle a little more olive oil over the filling, and brush the edge of each circle with beaten egg. 

7. Fold the pastry over the filling and press the edges together then crimp them from one end to the other. You can do this however you want - the simplest way is to use a fork to seal the edges. But you can be as fancy as you like!

8. Brush each pasty with beaten egg and cook in the oven for 30-35 minutes until golden brown.