Megan's Perfect Pasties

These are the best pasties you'll ever taste!
I am so thrilled to have made these. I adore bakery pasties and recently had a horrible experience of (not) eating a truly awful pastie from the local bakery in town. The pastry was lovely, but the filling was a hard lump  of something that tasted rather like cardboard.

For the pastry, make a batch of Rough Puff Pastry, using the method described here. Roll and turn about 6 times and then cut in half and refrigerate for half an hour or so.

If pushed for time, use ready rolled puff pastry. I prefer Pampas 25% Fat Reduced. It works a treat.


To make the filling:
250g lean beef mince
3 carrots
2 onions
1 turnip
½ to 1 parsnip
1 small potato
2 Tbsp rolled oats (soaks up liquid - thanks Judy!)
4 tsp beef stock powder
2 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
a few frozen peas
1 beaten egg for glazing.

I don't bother peeling the root vegetables. Just chop roughly.  Just make sure carrot is cut a little smaller than other vegies as it's harder.

Place mince, stock powder, peas and pepper into a large mixing bowl. Stir together.

To chop vegetables, place into food processor or Thermomix and chop on speed 5 for a couple of seconds at a time. Use the spatula to stir around and chop again if necessary. Add to mince with the remaining ingredients.

To make pasties:
Preheat oven to 200C. Line two trays with baking paper.
Roll out pastry and cut circles using a small side plate (I sometimes make smaller ones using my pie maker cutter).  Brush inside with beaten egg and place filling on one half, avoiding edges. Fold other half over and seal with finger crimping. Prick with a fork and place on baking tray.
Brush with beaten egg and bake for half an hour.
Remove from tray and place straight onto oven racks and bake for a further 10 minutes. If using bought puff pastry, there's no need to do this. I just bake until they're cooked and remove to a cake rack to cool.

 Filling the pastie

 Ready for the egg glaze and baking

 I used 3/4 of the pastry and made 10 pasties. The remaining pastry was made into 2 pastie sized apple turnovers, a croissant and some spirals with sugar on top.

Hints and Tips:
I now make snack sized pasties using the larger ring cutter from the electric pie maker - 12 cm diameter. I make 2 lots of pastry and cut into circles, laying each circle on a plate with baking paper in between (keep the baking paper in a plastic bag for next time).

If you make the filling a day or so before, place it in a colander over a bowl in the fridge. Just put a plate on top to stop it drying out. This will allow liquid to drain. Because there's salt in the mixture, it draws liquid from the meat and the vegetables.

My puff pastry making is now perfected and puffs up so much more than previously. Here's a photo of a recent batch.