While I had heard of hand-held meat pies, I did not know they were likely derived from Cornish pasties. I looked them up and ooh-ahhed over some photos and forgot about them. My sister and I love the sites that tell you what day of the week it is like "National Corndog Day," etc. So after reading about people discussing them here, and then looking at pictures, imagine my surprise when I read that last week was National Cornish Pasty Week! I didn't get to making them last week, but made them today. I'd never had them before, and so I was starting from scratch.
This was the site that gave me most of the instructions, including the basic recipe. In reading it, I thought that I would likely choke as it would turn out dry, so I did make some changes.
First, I made the pasty crust exactly as written on this site. Me, being me, I rarely measure. The result was that I ended up needing a bit more water than written. I also used Kerrygold butter because that was what I had. Similarly, I had some lard leftover from when I made tamales. For roughly the amount of flour I had, I used about a stick of butter and roughly the same amount of lard. Food processor made the crumbs easy and then added water until it would make a ball. It was very stiff and hard to knead, but....I kneaded and kneaded until it was no longer crumbly and held its shape.
When I took the ball out of the fridge, I rolled it into a log, cut the log in half, and put half back in the fridge wrapped up again while I cut the remaining half into three sections. By doing this, the need for cutting into circles was not necessary as I was able to roll it out approximately seven inches in a fairly circular form.
The filling was mainly as written except I read on another site to add about two pats of butter and a sprinkle of flour to keep the juices inside the crust and make it slightly more moist. The butter pats and flour were the last thing added. I also read that there was a need to really make a small dice to ensure all would cook while baking. I used a scant pound of skirt steak that I had in the freezer.
In filling and crimping, it seemed that the dough was too small for the filling but it easily pulled over to cover it. Then it would not crimp. To get the crimps to hold, I edged the pasty with a smear of water, and it crimped right up. My first attempt was UGLY. I'm sure you can ID it from the picture, but it was tasty too.
It took about 10 minutes more to bake than it said in the recipe. I basted with milk and that made the crust delicious, but pale.
Fresh out of the oven, the pasties were like molten lava. However, the veggies and meat were thoroughly cooked and the crust was slightly flaky without crumbling. It was easy to eat straight from one's hand. I'm curious how they will hold up for tomorrow.
I will definitely make these again, and will freeze some next time!
One last note: I've never been good at making pie crush but this dough was easy to work with!