Cornish Pasty

CORNISH PASTY
There are close to 400 cookbooks on the shelves here, but hardly any have a pasty recipe. This is probably because a lot of people consider pasties to be for the lower classes, which always means somebody else. When I sat at a lunch counter and ordered a "pattie" in Jamaica, the tour driver said I couldn't eat that, but I did, and it was good. It was a small meat filled pastry.

You need sturdy pie crust dough, to be rolled ¼ inch thick. This recipe makes 16 six inch pasties, and calls for 4 cups flour, 1 ½ cups of lard, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 8 to 10 tablespoons of ice water. The lard is chilled and cut into ¼ inch pieces. Any pastry recipe can be used. After chilling, roll the dough and cut around a saucer to make 16 6 inch rounds. At the factory, pasties were more nearly the size of half of a nine inch pie, bigger than the average apple turnover, and of similar shape. As Fred Waring said about the music he sold, it's yours now, do what you want with it. There's no reason to use turnips if you hate them, and the size is up to you. DH had too many turnips during the depression, so I never served them, although I grew them most summers, and cooked them for myself. I also sneaked them into soup, where they added to an unidentifiable but interesting background.

Filling:
1 cup white or yellow turnip, peeled and chopped
2 cups ½ inch cubes of lean beef
1 cup chopped onions
2 cups diced potatoes to match the beef size
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper - freshly ground of course, but use what you have
1 egg lightly beaten

Put ¼ cup of filling on each round. Moisten the edges with a pastry brush and cold water. Fold the round in half and crimp the edges. Place pasties on a well-greased baking sheet. Make 2 slits in each. Brush lightly with the beaten egg. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake 30 minutes longer.

I wouldn't trust a turnip to get tender in that time. I'd pick one pastie for frequent testing to see that all the ingredients were tender.