Cornish pasties

Pasties originate in Cornwall, so perhaps it’s not surprising that I associate them with Falmouth.  Known locally as ‘Oggies’ for some obscure reason, they were a neatly packaged lunch for men working in the tin mines.  The story goes that they were savoury at one end and that the other end was filled with jam. Nowadays, they’re usually made with meat, but of course they were originally vegetarian – miners couldn’t afford meat for lunch. Rowes, in Falmouth, used to make (and probably still do!) probably the best vegetarian pasty that I’ve ever eaten.  However, they used flaky pastry, which is far from authentic and is so awkward to make, that I don’t suggest it for any of my recipes.  However, the following recipe is an attempt to replicate Rowes' masterpiece and I think the filling is not dissimilar.

 

Ideally, pasties are made in an oven, but if you don’t have one, they can be ‘dry’ fried in a heavy frying pan and are almost as good. 

 

Makes 2 pasties

 

Ingredients

 

1 portion of pastry

1 large potato

1 large carrot

1 small swede (or turnip) - about the size of a tennis ball

1 onion

a good pinch each of rosemary, thyme and sage

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

 

Method:

• If you are using it, pre-heat the oven to Fairly Hot. 
• Peel, if you prefer, and thinly slice the potato, carrot, swede and onion, then put them into a frying pan of lightly salted water.  Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add the herbs, salt and the white pepper. Half a tsp might seem a lot, but in my opinion, good pasties are always quite peppery and you could easily add more without overdoing it.  Cook a bit longer, until tender – about ten minutes. Drain and cool, trying not to break up the slices.  
• Make the pastry, cut it in half and roll it out.
• Cut out two discs a little smaller than the diameter of your frying pan, or about 200mm/8 in across, if you're cooking in the oven.  Make your discs as near circular as possible: this makes it easier to seal the pasties.
• Pile the filling carefully in the centre of each disc.  You really want it to be thoroughly cooled and quite dry, otherwise it can weaken the pastry.  Shove in as much filling as you can - pasties are much nicer well filled. 
• Now moisten the edges with water: a 12 mm (1/2 inch) paintbrush is ideal for this, or just use your finger. Fold each disc in two and pinch the edges together. The easiest way tends to be to start from the middle and work to the ends. Poke back any of the filling that tries to drop out. When the pasty is sealed, fold the seam back over on itself, at 12 mm/1/2 in intervals, to double seal the edge and pinch it between finger and thumb. This should result in a highly professional looking crimped effect.
• Put them on a baking sheet and cook in a Fairly Hot oven for 20 – 25 minutes, or cook them in the frying pan.
• To do this, ensure that your pan is very clean and/or excellently seasoned.  If you have any doubts, it might well be worth greasing the pan first. Put it over a flame tamer and a moderate flame. (If you don't have a flame tamer, I would definitely grease the pan.  While this increases your chances of burning the pasties slightly, this is nowhere near as bad as the pastry sticking to the pan).
• When you’ve made the pasties, put them in the pan. Their semi-circular shape makes this quite straightforward. After about 10 minutes, carefully turn them over, using a fish slice and/or tongs. Cook the other side. The pastry should brown nicely where it’s in contact with the pan and the rest should cook through to become opaque. Turn them again for another 5 minutes each side if they don’t seem quite done. If you have a well-vented lid to let the steam out, (so that they don’t end up soggy) you can cover them to speed things up a little.
  
  

Pasties are delicious straight out of the oven or pan, either eaten - carefully! - out of hand, or on a plate with knife and fork, accompanied with a green vegetable or salad.  Cold, like the miners ate them, they're ideal picnic food being pretty robust and not requiring a plate.

 

Notes:

• If you know how to make pastry, my recipe for 'one portion' is: 4 tsp olive oil, 1/3 cup water, pinch of salt, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder.
• Swede,in my opinion, is much preferable to turnip, both for taste and colour, but if they're unavailable, turnip is a good second best. 
• If you don’t have white pepper, use black, but the white pepper is what is traditionally used and adds a different sort of ‘heat’ from black.
• If you are feeling pretty confident, you can start sealing the pasty from one end: this allows you to keep adding filling to stuff them as full as possible.  However, it's easy to tear the pastry - this is one reason why a cold, dry filling makes life easier.  Any left over veg can be put into an omelette - or even a sandwich, for the more adventurous eater.
• If you're confident about the pan/flame tamer arrangement, add a little oil to the pan before adding the pasties. This will ensure a delightful golden crust, but if the pan is too hot you could easily burn the pastry.

Variations:

• Cook a diced potato, carrot, onion and 1/4 cup split peas in a small saucepan. Season with a few herbs, salt and pepper and, when it’s cooled, pile onto the pastry. Complete and cook as above.  This filling will probably be easier to use than the sliced vegetables in the main recipe.
• Cook the above with a little turmeric, coriander, cumin, chilli and garam masala as an ersatz samosa! 
• Leftover stewor hotpot can also be used. Ensure it’s well drained before putting it on the pastry.
• Add freeze-dried peas to the filling.
• Any of the fillings for empanadas can be used to make a savoury pasty.
• Pasties are good hot, as a main meal, with a green vegetable such as Brussels sprouts. I dare say some people would like to add a gravy or sauce of some description, too.

 Edited 26/6/26

A Christmas Table

To date, I've pretty much followed my plan of making this blog a version of my draft book,  The Voyaging Vegetarian.  However, I wonder how many of the two or three readers who have looked at this blog, have even opened the pages under "Topics for Voyaging Vegetarians" and so I've decided to do something totally different: write what is really a blog post.

 

Christmas!  Some people love it, some people loathe it, some are quite indifferent.  I have very mixed feelings about it: I love the memories of Christmas past spent with my family, before most of them died.  I like that it's a special day and it's a fine excuse to buy myself something a little bit special and call it a Christmas present.  However, partly because I adored our own family rituals, I don't particularly like joining other people for Christmas. Obviously they do things their own way and to be honest, it's one day of the year when I really don't want to accommodate others.  Add to this the fact that I am a vegetarian, who finds the sight and smell of meat  offputting; that I'm used to dining quite late; that I can think of few things worse on a hot day, than a roast dinner or any heavy meal; that I dislike sweet puddings and prefer to avoid the giving of unwanted presents, and you can see that I am anyway, a far from ideal guest.  

Fortunately, I live on a boat, so a day or so before Christmas, I can sail away to an unpopular anchorage which I am likely to have more or less to myself and be fairly sure that no-one will miss me.  The anchorages are often very pretty, but have a very poor mobile phone signal which for many people makes them a bad choice at this time of the year, when they want to talk to family and friends.

Once happily anchored, forecast checked once more, I spend several pleasant hours preparing my own Christmas feast.  For the past couple of years, this has been what we used to call a 'buffet', and which now appears to be called a 'grazing table', ideal for idling away a hot summer's afternoon and evening.  For anyone interested in doing likewise, I am offering this year's spread for inspiration.

So what did I have? I  made seeded-bread rolls, and to go with them prepared two pâtés:

The first one is the variation on the lentil and mushroom pâté, where walnuts are used instead of the mushrooms.  I love this variation: indeed, I'm not sure that I don't prefer it to the mushroom version.  I had some fresh sage leaves, which I fried until they were crisp, and used to decorate it. It goes well with bread or crackers, but I also found it delicious wrapped in a lettuce leaf.

I made a lot of this pâté and finished the last of it off, by watering it down and serving it with pasta.  It was very good!

The second pâté I made is the really rich and luxurious mushroom and sunflower seed one, which I feel is on a par with any made from meat. 

It being Christmas, I had a generous hand with the brandy and added what I like to think was an authentic touch, by melting vegan ghee over the top of it.  Again, it was good with bread, crackers or wrapped in a lettuce leaf.  Incidentally, both of these pâtés keep for several days without refrigeration, even with the hot weather we had over Christmas.  There is no difficulty on my part, eating them for breakfast, either.

Any grazing table worth its name has to include hummus, of course.  I like to make mine by squashing the peas with a pestle, rather than blending them really smooth.  

I much prefer a bit of texture, personally and I also like to include plenty of cumin in the mix.  This year I added a drizzle of chilli oil, from the chilli peppers I preserved earlier in the year.  It added a delightful bit of zing.  Olive oil over the top stops it from drying out and adds richness to the flavour and texture.  Again, the hummus is great with bread, crackers or wrapped in lettuce.  This also keeps for several days without refrigeration - if it gets the chance.

My final creation was to make samosas.  I have just realised that, thus far, I haven't included a recipe for these.  As I have a very poor signal here (still in a deserte anchorage) and am pushing my luck writing this, I shall have to leave it for another day.  The recipe I used is made from smashed potatoes and freeze-dried peas.  A lot of people mash the potaoes, but again, I prefer to have some texture.

Additional food to browse on included: some fancy, truffle-flavoured crisps (although, I have to confess, I think I prefer simple, plain salted!), baby plum tomatoes, broccoli florets, baby carrots, the aforementioned lettuce and crackers, along with a bowl of vegan yoghurt, cherries and fresh dates.  Although I am largely vegan, for once I bought some locally-made cheese: a Gouda type.  Generally speaking, I avoid cheese because of the horrible lives that dairy cattle have, and the appalling way in which the unwanted calves are treated.  However, the Mahoe cheese comes from a farm that looks like something out of a children's book, with cows and a big bull grazing peacefully in the fields, the driveway lined with small paddocks full of pigs and piglets, pottering around in the sunshine.  If only all cheese were produced in such an animal-friendly setting ...

As you will see, all this lovely food was washed down with good wine and I very much enjoyed browsing and sipping - and reading the odd chapter of the new Richard Osman book I had bought for myself!  Perhaps, unsurprisingly, there was quite a lot left over, but it's all gone now, except for some of the cheese.  I can quite understand that most people don't want to spend Christmas on their own, but this grazing table also works will wit a cabin full of guests: we had a similar spread a couple of Christmases ago, with good friends on board.  To my mind, it's a far better choice in hot weather, than a sit-down, cooked meal.

Pastry

Before proceeding any further, let me say that I do not claim to be anything of a pastry cook. This is partly because on a boat, it’s usually difficult to have everything cool. It’s also due to my reluctance to use expensive butter or unpleasant-tasting margarine and the fact that I dislike ‘rubbing in’ pastry. I suspect that I simply don’t have the touch to produce good pastry. However, whenever I serve it, people always seem to enjoy it, so I can at least assert that if you use this recipe, the results are edible!

The following recipe is easy and foolproof. It’s cheap, because there’s no butter in it and it’s made with wholemeal flour. While it doesn’t produce light and flaky results, it rolls out easily. It makes sufficient to make two decent-sized pasties, four empanadas, eight samosas, a 230 mm (9 in) frying-pan quiche, a 200 mm (8 in) flan tin quiche or to cover a pie.

If you have your own favoured recipe, this is the equivalent of what in the UK would be referred to as ‘half a pound’ of pastry, or 250 g, or the equivalent of making North American pastry with a cup of flour.

 

To make 2 pasties, 4 empanadas, 8 samosas or 1 flan

Ingredients

4 tsp olive oil

1/3 cup warm water

pinch salt

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

Method: 

• Thoroughly mix oil and water together in a bowl, with a broad-bladed knife or mini whisk.
• Add the salt, flour and baking powder, combine together and finish mixing with your hand, kneading gently until a smooth dough is formed.
• Let it rest for 10 minutes
• Roll it out on a lightly floured board and cut to shape according to the recipe. 

There! It really couldn’t be easier, could it?  And while unconventional, I think you'll find most people enjoy it.

 

 

Edited 15 July 25