Tuesday and Wednesday's pasties

Due to another mistake (on my part) with the internet shopping we had ended up with a rather large quantity of onions. I had meant to get some white/brown onions and some red onions but had inadvertently ordered all white/brown. With a busy few weeks ahead there are going to be limited opportunities for using these conventionally so I was in need of a bulk onion operation. The obvious would be onion soup but we have been eating soup (leek/potato/lentil or pumpkin/sherry) most days of the past week so I was looking for something a bit different. What came to mind was some kind of onion tart. This would have the bonus of providing me with an opportunity to practise my pastry skills.

Whilst perusing for a recipe I came across a few possibles for a tart but was distracted by one for pasties. After consulting with Matt, my husband, I decided to go for the pasties. One of the main purposes of this baking would be to contribute to a train picnic so pasties were imminently more sensible than tarts.

I started off making the pastry. The recipe I had was for onion and Wensleydale pasties. I didn't plan to do onion and Wensleydale, I planned to invent my own filling, but the pastry would be universal. On this occasion I was going to attempt flaky pastry. I was somewhat overwhelmed by the long long list of instructions (14 steps) but on closer inspection these didn't seem too awful, just detailed. I was also somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of butter called for (175g), but I suppose that is what happens when you decide to make pastry. The recipe said that you have to divide this into 4 even parts, which gives the puzzling mass of 4 x 43.75g. I am yet to discover the kitchen scales that measure to two decimal places but I did a pretty good job and got them all within 2g with just a tiny bit of adjustment.

You rub the first (near) quarter of butter into the flour and then mix it to a dough with cold water and a teaspoon of lemon juice. I am not sure of the role of the lemon juice but this was the first time I'd made this so I wasn't about go fiddling with the recipe. Then you knead it and chill it. This recipe called for a lot of chilling which makes it a good multi-tasking option (laundry in this instance). Once chilled, you roll out the pastry. The recipe specifically stated that it should be rolled out to a 15x45cm rectangle. I was not about to be getting my tape measure out so sort of estimated this too. I also found that it was very difficult to get a rectangle shape and ended up with more of an oval really.

The next step was described as flaking the next (near) quarter of butter over the bottom and middle third of the rectangle. I assumed it meant that you had the 15cm horizontally and the 45cm vertically (which was actually the opposite arrangement to my pastry). “Flaking” the butter seemed like a rather complex operation, certainly not one I could achieve before the butter melted in my hand, so I grated it instead. I used one of those little graters that you get in hot chocolate gift packs at Christmas time which was surprisingly satisfying. You then fold the pastry up like an envelope and chill it again. Once chilled, you repeat all of that with the third (near) quarter of butter; and then again with the final (near) quarter. Incidentally, it got easier to roll to a rectangle with each stage, but still not perfect.

By now it was getting late and, having been busy multi-tasking, I had neglected to make the filling. I decided that it would be wise to go to sleep and do that the next day. Having originally planned this project to use a load of onions but when it came to it I had a change of heart. I made a more generic vegetabley filling with onion (x1), celery (x1 stick), carrot (x1), leek (x2) and plenty of seasoning. I sautéed this all off on the hob, by which time I needed to get off to work, so the pasty assembly would have to wait until later.

I rolled out the pastry for the final time and then cut it into nine square(ish) pieces (the recipe said eight but nine seemed to fit better). I dolloped a bit of the vegetable filling onto the squares and then augmented with some cheese, we had some feta and my favourite brand of soft cheese with garlic and herbs to use up so I did 4 with the former and 5 with the latter. It became apparent that I had made far too much filling and I didn't manage to use up either of the cheeses either. The closure of the pasties proved the most technically demanding part of the process so far. I managed it but not in a very neat manner. These would be rustic looking pasties.

The recipe then told me to “flake the pastry with a knife”. I had no idea what this meant so sort of scraped one of the pasties but this just looked weird so I didn't do anything to the rest of them apart from snipping to let out steam.

They go went into a very hot oven for 8 minutes and then had further 20 minutes or so slightly cooler. I had a peek midway and was appalled at the volume of fat they appeared to be swimming in so did a careful pour away of some of this. I took them out of the oven when they looked golden. As it was now past 10 o'clock the taste test would have to wait until the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning I started the preparation for our train picnic. This involved putting 2 pasties each (1 each of the soft cheese with garlic and herbs and feta) into a plastic tub. This left 5 pasties for me to distribute at work. 5 is a difficult number to distribute because it's clearly not enough for everyone. My criteria today were:

1. Pregnant people

2. People who got wind of the pasty situation and asked for one

3. People who were extra-specially nice.

My pregnant colleagues devoured one each for elevenses; I devoured one for a mid-afternoon snack – I couldn't resist as every time I opened my bag I got a whiff of pasty goodness; and I gave the final one to the colleague I had been working closest with that day. The consensus was good. Indeed someone actually declared me to be a cooking wizard!

I had to rapidly augment our train picnic due to the quick post-work turn around time to get the train. I added baps (cheese and tomato plus feta and guacamole), yoghurt, crisps and malt loaf (pre-sliced). The pasties were definitely the highlight (although the feat and guacamole bap came a close second). The pastry was crisp and the filling delicious. My pastry confidence has improved and I plan to reprise the pasty creation for a wider audience.

(In case you were wondering, Matt ate the excess filling with a fried egg late at night.)