St Piran's Day Cornish Blue Pasties...

Happy St Piran's Day for tomorrow. St Piran's Day has become so much bigger in the last few years. (Here's the history). There is only one dish fit for the celebrations and that is a pasty lunch. I got really excited because I had loads of Cornish Blue cheese to use up and thought I would make Steak and Cornish Blue pasties. I did a bit of googling around to see whether there were any recipes anywhere and couldn't find one. Then I felt a bit smug that I was going to put a recipe online, only to realise yesterday that Chough's won World Champion Company Savoury at the World Pasty Championships at the weekend for the same thing. 

So the idea isn't original but it was delicious. If you don't want the blue cheese in it just leave it out. 

I also experimented using strong white bread flour instead of plain and I actually preferred it. Which is handy as I've got 8kgs to use up.

Cornish Blue and Steak Pasties (makes 4 or 6 bite size)

450g strong white bread flour

120g butter

120g hard white vegetable fat or lard

120g butter

up to 200ml cold water

200g beef skirt (I only had chopped beef)

100g Cornish Blue cheese

1 small onion

100g slice swede

120g potato

salt and pepper

2 tbsps clotted cream 

Weigh the flour into a bowl and season with some salt. Grate in the butter and vegetable fat. Rub the fat into the flour until thoroughly combined.

Add the water a little at a time and bring the dough together with a knife. Give it a little knead and bring it together into a ball. Wrap it in cling film and pop it in the fridge for about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200'c.

Peel and chop the onion and separate the chunks. Peel and slice the potato and swede into slices about as thick as a pound coin. Chop the cheese and beef into rough chunks. (Make sure you haven't got chunks of fat on the beef.)

Take the pastry out of the fridge and chop into four (or six if making smaller ones). Roll out into four circles the size of a small dinner plate (about 25 cms.) Layer up the pasty filling in the centre leaving a good sized edge, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Top with some little blobs of clotted cream. 

Fold the pastry over so you have a crescent shape and press down the edge to keep the ingredients in. I could now tell you how to crimp but I'm rubbish at it. (See below). However, there's a good masterclass here that's much better than I could do.

Brush with a little milk and put in the oven for 30 minutes. Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes. Serve on it's own. Not with mayonnaise and ketchup as my other half did. 

The other two pasties I put in the freezer so I can defrost tomorrow morning and have a proper St Piran's Day lunch. 

You can find out more about St Piran's Day and get in the spirit by following @stpiransday on twitter.