KrisB
Ten Pointer
I like to fix international recipes sometimes and one of my favorites that is pretty easy to make is Cornish pasties. I think they would be called meat pies here in the US, but they are half-moon-shaped, not round like pies. Cornish pasties are a traditional lunch the miners' wives of Cornwall (southwest England) would pack for their husbands all the way back to the 1200s in the Middle Ages up until sometime in the mid-19th century when tin mining in Cornwall finally ended. They used to put various things in the pasties (vegetables, fruit, and/or meat), but nowadays traditional Cornish pasties are made with beef, rutabaga, potatoes, and onions. There are different versions of them in other parts of the UK, like the giant Welsh oggies that are made with lamb, leeks, and potatoes. I've made Cornish pasties several times following this traditional Cornish pasty recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/traditional-cornish-pasty-recipe-435042
But this time I decided to play around with the recipe. I saw a very similar recipe in Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes by Ronnie Lundy called Venison or Beef Hand Pies. It is a very fancy version of a Cornish pasty, in my opinion, and the ingredients list makes me assume a modern professional chef came up with it. I followed this recipe once and said never again. It took too many different ingredients and too much time to make. I went back to simple Cornish pasties.
Yesterday I decided to try a sort of combining of these 2 recipes. I only used 3 ingredients like in the traditional recipe, but I changed the third ingredient: Diced stew beef, diced onion, and some cut-up pickled spiced peaches that I made recently. I made the quick pastry dough according to the traditional recipe as well: flour, some diced butter, a little salt, and a little water.
But I followed the directions for the Venison or Beef Hand Pies when it came to oven temperature and time: I baked the pasties for 25 minutes at 400 F.
They came out fantastic! Here is a picture of the results (they are supposed to look like the pasty on the left, but I tend to overstuff them, so sometimes they look like the one on the right; still delicious!), along with a couple pictures of the Venison or Beef Hand Pies recipe so you can see how different it is. They are great with chow chow!
I hope I can make these in the fall with squirrel meat. They are the perfect snack or lunch to take into the woods if you will need to stop and eat at some point. Highly recommend the simple recipe!
But this time I decided to play around with the recipe. I saw a very similar recipe in Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes by Ronnie Lundy called Venison or Beef Hand Pies. It is a very fancy version of a Cornish pasty, in my opinion, and the ingredients list makes me assume a modern professional chef came up with it. I followed this recipe once and said never again. It took too many different ingredients and too much time to make. I went back to simple Cornish pasties.
Yesterday I decided to try a sort of combining of these 2 recipes. I only used 3 ingredients like in the traditional recipe, but I changed the third ingredient: Diced stew beef, diced onion, and some cut-up pickled spiced peaches that I made recently. I made the quick pastry dough according to the traditional recipe as well: flour, some diced butter, a little salt, and a little water.
But I followed the directions for the Venison or Beef Hand Pies when it came to oven temperature and time: I baked the pasties for 25 minutes at 400 F.
They came out fantastic! Here is a picture of the results (they are supposed to look like the pasty on the left, but I tend to overstuff them, so sometimes they look like the one on the right; still delicious!), along with a couple pictures of the Venison or Beef Hand Pies recipe so you can see how different it is. They are great with chow chow!
I hope I can make these in the fall with squirrel meat. They are the perfect snack or lunch to take into the woods if you will need to stop and eat at some point. Highly recommend the simple recipe!
Attachments
Last edited: