Homemade Pasty

I can’t help it…but once August rolls around, I’m just about ready for Fall. By August, the flowers are starting to stop blooming, the nights get just a bit cooler, and I start seeing cute Fall clothes in the stores. Along with that, I start getting ready for delicious fall foods! One of my most favorite meals growing up were homemade pasties (pronounced past-ee). My grandmother is the original recipe holder, and we use the same recipe today. What exactly is a Pasty? It’s essentially a meat and vegetable handheld pie. Although I eat mine with a fork, the point was that you could have a satisfying meal wherever you went. My husband LOVES these…and what guy wouldn’t? It’s meat, potatoes, onion and carrots bundled together in an English pastry crust. The best part about these, is that the recipe makes 4 pasties, just enough for dinner and two frozen pasties for later! This is also a great Fix and Freeze recipe.

Ingredients

English Pastry

• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt until well combined. With a fork, combine the flour mixture with the vegetable shortening and egg yolk.
2. Add the hot water and lemon juice and mix until a soft dough forms.
3. Chill for at least 2-3 hours

Ingredients

Filling

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrot
• 1.5 cups chopped russet potato
• Butter

Directions

1. In a large skillet, brown the ground beef and onion together until cooked through.
2. Add the carrots and potatoes to the ground beef and onion and mix to combine.
3. You can fancy this recipe up if you like…adding fresh herbs such as thyme or rosemary, but our family recipe is basic, and I love it for that.
4. Cut your pastry dough into 4 equal sections, and roll into balls.
5. On a floured surface, roll out each ball into a 7-8 inch diameter circle.
6. Place the ground beef filling, as much as you can fit on one side, into the pastry leaving an edge to seal the pasty.
7. Add a couple small pats of butter on top of the filling and fold the other side of the dough over to create a half moon.
8. Fold the edges up around the pasty to seal in the filling and use a fork to seal the edge. Pierce the top of each pasty four times with a fork to vent.
9. Place the pasties on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hours at 350 degrees.
10. After the hour of baking, pull out the pasties and place a dish towel over the top. Let the pasties steam for 15 minutes before serving.
11. We like to put ketchup all over ours, but you can eat it plain as well.

Enjoy!