Cheese is a wonderfully versatile foodstuff. You can eat it straight from the fridge, grate it on you food, chuck it in a sandwich or use it as an ingredient to lift any meal! Today we bring you a recipe from our resident Cornish cook (Sue Allaway) which is sure to tickle the taste buds of any cheese-lover!

Ingredients – This recipe makes 2 proper sized pasties (i.e. each as long as a dinner plate!)

300g plain flour (white is best)

100 g  butter or block (hard) margarine – cubed

Cold water to mix

¼ of a medium swede (peeled and grated)

2 small potatoes  (I scrub but don’t peel)

1 leek (trimmed washed and thinly sliced)

100g grated mature cheddar 

OPTIONAL – meat-eaters would use approx 150-200g diced beef skirt

2 tbsp parsley finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Heat oven to Gas Mark 6 / 200C and grease a flan tin. I use Teflon-coated baking sheet on my baking tray – you need one that won’t buckle when in a hot oven
  2. Make up shortcrust pastry. Rub fat into flour until it looks like bread crumbs (or mic for 10 seconds in a food processor with metal blade). Add about 2-3 tbsp cold water, mix and knead to a dough (or blend in food processor for 15 seconds until combined).
  3. Wrap pastry in cling film and out in the fridge to chill for ½ hour
  4. Prepare the filling ingredients (but not the potatoes or they will go brown).
  5. Divide the pastry into 2 balls and roll each into a large circle almost the size of a dinner plate.
  6. Slice one of the potatoes thinly and place on top of the pastry circle in the wide line down a wide middle of the pastry. Top this with ½ of the grated swede, followed by half of the sliced leeks, then half of the cheese. Top with half of the parsley and season with salt and pepper.
  7. Moisten the edges of the circle of pastry with water and squeeze the edges together, either meeting half way so the seam is on the top. Or as in our family about 1/3 of the way down one side; the edges are then ‘crimpled together’ (*see video below). 
  8. Make a small hole in the pasty (I use a veg knife to allow steam to escape when cooking)
  9. Repeat steps 5-8 to make the second pasty
  10. Brush the pasty with milk to glaze (optional)
  11. Carefully put pasty onto baking sheet the oven to cook for about 20 mins, then lower to oven to Gas Mark 3/4 / 150C and cook for about 1 hour. Leave to cool for about 10 mins before eating them.
  12. In our family we add a shake of vinegar to the pasty as it is eaten down, and I always enjoy mine with good real ale!

Traditionally the pasty is eaten from a pointy end, holding it vertically in the hands. The Cornish miners would have a ‘croust bag’; a cotton bag that the pasty would be carried in, which meant the pasty could then be eaten in the mine by folding down the cloth bag. As you munched your way through it didn’t matter if hands were dirty!

* Check out this video on You Tube to show you how to construct and ‘crimp a pasty’ – The lady has a wonderful Cornish accent!

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