Homemade Pasties

This is where I talk about my love of pasties. Pasties are a traditional meat and potato filled pastry. They are Cornish Meat Pies and are delish! These are famous in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where my husband’s family is originally from. Historically they were made for the miners for their lunches.

Here’s the basics:

I make my own pastry dough that’s modified from the original Fanny Farmer recipe for pie crust dough:

• 2 cups AP flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup shortening
• 1 tsp salt
• ~1/3 cold water

For the traditional filling:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 cups cubed russet potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion
• lots of salt and pepper

I recommend watching a video on how to make pie crust dough because there’s a lot of technique to learn. I use a food processor to blend the flours and salt, and then ‘pulse’ in the shortening until it’s crumbly- this is where you start to need a visual- and then pour the mix into a bowl. Begin to pour the water intermittently while kind of chop the dough to blend, but don’t over mix- you don’t want the flour to form gluten, you still want it flaky. When the dough starts to get sticky,  separate it into balls and chill for at least 30 mins.

The best filling is just simple ground beef, chopped potato and onion with salt and pepper to taste. Chop the potatoes and the onions small enough so that they don’t pierce through the dough. We always start with about 3 lbs of meat and I make about 5x the dough recipe above to cover them all.

Roll out your dough into about 6″ rounds and paint the outer ring with water for the seal. Place a handful of filling on one side and fold over. Crimp the edges with a fork and paint with egg yolk or milk. Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes.

After they bake in the oven and you can eat them with ketchup or freeze them for later!