Diary of a Crazy Rabbit Lady, Too: Pasties

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Pasties

No, not that kind; you're saying it wrong. A pasty rhymes with nasty, not hasty, and is a type of hand pie, which it seems many restaurants served in The Cat Who... series.

So in The Cat Who... Cookbook, there are three recipes for pasties. Two of them are little more than ground beef and turnips, with a little onion, salt and pepper in a pie crust. The third has more actual seasonings, but no turnip.

Part of me wanted to go rogue here and combine the three recipes to create something more palatable than the last two recipes I tried. However, I realize that wouldn't be true to the plan here, so I am going to just pick one and follow the recipe as written!

So we're going with the recipe for Foo Pasty! As you can see, super simple. The pastry crust was created in a way I never have before, and I didn't take any photos. They have you actually bring water, milk, and shortening to a boil, then mix it into the flour & salt until a smooth dough coalesces.

Then you mix together all the ingredients for the inside: turnip, onion, lean ground beef, salt and pepper. In hindsight, I would have minced my turnips, not just finely chopped them, and perhaps would have used some other vegetables to add to the flavor. Also this could have used more seasonings and a less lean ground beef. They were rather dry and bland in my opinion.

The crust was a mess, but tasted fine. I didn't do such a great job rolling them out "into circles," and I didn't form the meat mixture loaf/patty in quite the right place, so folding over and crimping created a lot of cracks and broken bits. They weren't very pretty but they held together like they were supposed to!

The egg yolk wash also added a nice color. We were worried that it wouldn't be enough food, but really it was more than enough for our small family of three, with enough leftovers for lunch the next two days!