You’ve got to wonder whether we procrastinating writers with our elaborate pieces outlining our “gunna do’s”, ever get anything DONE!
Well, occasionally we actually do get to ring the brass bell and shout: “I did it!” Better still, this time I can also cheer “and it worked!”
That is, as long as you don’t mind dinner at 10.00 PM!
Better late than never!
If you’re going to make Cornish Pasties, you probably need to start making the dough about 5 hours before serving, as the dough needs to rest in the fridge for 3 hours and they take almost an hour to bake in the oven because the filling is raw and needs to cook.
After reading my preamble in my previous post, you’d know that I was making the Cornish Pasties for my husband. He grew up in Scottsdale in NE Tasmania where they were “curleys” at the school canteen, contrasting to the standard meat pies. He moved to the mainland in his 20s as “an economic refugee” and has never found Cornish Pasties anywhere near as good as Poole’s.
So, wanting to treat my husband, I set out in my usual intrepid manner barging in where angels fear to tread, to recreate a Poole’s Cornish Pasty, even though I only tried one once 10 years ago.
Well, the verdict was “pretty good”. My Cornish Pasty has a crunchy pastry, where the Poole’s Curley was soft. The filing was spot on, although he recommended a bit more pepper. I was wary of overdoing the pepper and being a raw meat mix, I wasn’t able to taste it.
A look inside our “Curley” Aussie Cornish Pasty.
Moreover, chatting to a friend this morning while dropping our daughters off at the station at the ungodly hour of 7.45AM, she also recommended a dob of butter and a sprinkling of flour to get a gravy. That would be a great addition because I couldn’t find skirt steak and it seems rump steak wasn’t quite as juicy. Our pasties weren’t dry but a bit of gravy would take it up a notch.
My Daughter enjoys rolling out the pastry.
While the kids went to bed before the pasties were ready, my daughter helped put them together and of course, loved rolled out the pastry and assembling the pasties. While she was doing this, she kept asking me about the “corn” and said something about “Ah! The corn goes on the plate”. Finally, the penny dropped. She thought Cornish Pasties had corn in them. Yay! Another opportunity for geography and history lessons although the map had to wait for tonight. Our daughter is a master of extending and extending bedtime and my husband appeared and she was off.
Somehow, we ended up with only four pasties from our recommended six from the pastry and enough filling left over to make another 4 I reckon. So, at 2.45PM, I’m quickly heading off to make my pastry and get it into the fridge to rest.
My Assistant Pastry Cook.
As they endlessly repeat in the Masterchef Kitchen, “Time is not your friend”.
I will be back with my revised recipe.
xx Rowena
Beyond the Flow 
Your post has reminded me we had them at school (UK). They were the folded over type though, not the upright curlies. They were quite peppery from memory. The meat certainly wasn’t top cuts though. But maybe it was stewing steak that had been pre-cooked? Don’t know. I’m thinking a vegetarian version would be good.
My husband has also mentioned the pepper, which makes sense for that era when other flavours weren’t so commonly used.
The meat has cooked well in the pastry but I cut it up into very small cubes. Need to get the veggie cubes smaller.
I’d need a different choice of veggies for a vegetarian version. Your cheese and spinach pasty would be a possibility.
Peas, carrots, potatoes. In fact I think school ones had all those, and not much meat. Not brassicas, but most other veg would work. Gravy? With a little yeast extract I think. Anyway. Not for now, summer here!
Yeast extract? That sounds like Vegemite to me!
Yup 🙂
Great way to start out the weekend and no doubt the hubs and kiddos enjoyed it immensely. Well done, Rowena!
Thanks very much, Monika. I needed a victory! I’ve been feeling a bit flat lately. I could blame Winter but I think I’ve been feeling a bit lost. Need to start turning some of the blog posts into freelance articles.