How to make Cornish pasties

A good Cornish pasty should be packed with meat and vegetables, encased in a crispy, buttery pastry. This recipe shows you how to make Cornish pasties that (I think) give the traditional Cornish pasties a run for their money!

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What is a Cornish pasty?

A Cornish pastry is a hand pie filled with meat and vegetables, encased in a thick buttery pastry, with a distinctive crimped edge.

Traditional Cornish pasties are filled with beef, and pieces of potato, swede and onion. And nothing else apart from a sprinkling of salt and black pepper. The beef and vegetables are chopped up quite finely and are not cooked before being added to the pasty. Instead, the long cooking time (almost an hour) is enough to tenderise the meat and vegetables, making them soft and melt-in-the-mouth luscious.

The pastry is made with half lard and half butter, which results in a crispy pastry that is strong enough to encase the copious amount of filling.

There is also no gravy in a Cornish pasty. Some people like to dot a little butter on top of the filling before sealing the pasty, but I don’t bother with this. I think the buttery pastry combined with the tender meat and vegetables makes the pasties more than juicy enough.

A bit of Cornish history

Before we get on with the actual recipe, I’d like to share a bit of trivia that I found quite interesting.

Who of you remember the chant ‘oggie oggie oggie’ and the response ‘oi oi oi’ normally associated with rugby matches and other sporting events? Well, did you know that this actually originated in Cornwall in the 1800s?

Apparently, the Cornish wives would make Cornish pasties for their husbands who worked in the tin mines, ‘oggie’ being the Cornish word for pasty.

At lunch time the wives would all turn up at the minehead and shout ‘oggie oggie oggie’ to let their husbands know that their pasties were ready. And the husbands would respond with ‘oi oi oi’ to let their wives know they were coming up to fetch them.

Another interesting fact is the reason for the crimped edge on the pastry. A by-product of tin mining was arsenic which contaminated the Cornish tin miners’ hands. The crimped edge of the pastry gave the tin workers something to hold onto so they could eat their lunch without having to worry about contaminating their food with arsenic, and the thick crimped edge was discarded uneaten.

And sometimes, the enterprising wives would put beef and vegetables in one half of the pasty, and some sort of stewed fruit in the other half so that their husbands got a meal and a dessert in one!

But enough of that – let’s get on with the recipe.

What you will need

Equipment

For mixing the pastry and the filling you will need a couple of mixing bowls. For the filling, I like these mixing bowls with lids because they make it easy to cover the filling while it stands, but for the pastry, I prefer to use a large earthenware bowl.

To roll out the pastry you will need a rolling pin. And for baking the pasties you will need one or two baking trays. I like to line my baking tray with baking parchment to catch any drips that might cook out of the pasties. It makes cleaning up afterwards a whole lot easier.

You will also need a 20-centimeter diameter side plate to use as a template for cutting the pastry to size.

Ingredients

This recipe will make 7 large Cornish pasties.

**You can find the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making Cornish pasties on the printable recipe card at the end of this post**

Please don’t tell anyone from Cornwall, but today I’ve taken the liberty of making my Cornish pasties with carrots instead of swedes because I forgot to buy a swede! I’ll end up in the stocks if I ever dare to show my face in Cornwall 🙂 .

Beef – use good quality beef (not chuck or stewing steak for example as that will end up tough). You could use skirt steak, topside (as I’ve done here), flank or sirloin. The meat should be cut into small cubes, about 1 centimeter in size.

Vegetables – these are potatoes, onions and swedes (unless you forget to buy a swede, in which case you can use a carrot, but don’t tell anyone!). The vegetables should also be cut into very small dice.

Salt and black pepper – this is all you will need as far as seasoning goes.

Flour – this is for the pastry, and if possible you should use bread flour as this contains more gluten than all-purpose or plain flour and makes for a pastry that holds up well.

Butter and lard – for the pastry for the Cornish pasties we use a mixture of butter and lard. The butter adds flavour, while the lard makes the pastry crispier than using butter on its own.

Water – this is used to bind the pastry. The water should be added gradually to the pastry until the pastry just comes together in a soft ball. You may not need all the water stated in the recipe.

Egg – the pasties will be brushed with lightly beaten egg before being baked.

What to do

Start off by making the pastry as this has to rest for half an hour, and you can use that time to peel and chop the vegetables.

Note – because we are using bread flour, which contains more gluten than plain or all-purpose flour, you can handle this pastry a lot more than you would for a normal short-crust pastry. Don’t go overboard and knead it for five minutes though – 30 seconds to one minute will be fine.

Cover the ball of pastry with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for half an hour to rest.

Now get on with the filling.

I got 2 circles from each half of pastry and combined and re-rolled the trimmings to get another 2 circles, making 6 in total. I then combined the last trimming and had enough pastry to make a 7th circle.

The next step is to crimp the edges of the pastry. Start at one side and hold the pastry with your thumb and index finger. Fold the pastry over to form a crimp and repeat this movement around the entire edge.

This is a case of practice makes perfect (and I haven’t perfected it yet 🙂 ). Here is a video that you may like to take a look at from someone who really knows how to do it. How to properly crimp a Cornish pasty.

I like to serve these pasties fresh from the oven as a main meal with some homemade gravy and freshly steamed vegetables However, you could also serve them as a light lunch on their own, with perhaps a bowl of tomato sauce as a dipping sauce.

Tomato sauce and a cold Cornish pasty is (in my opinion and don’t judge me) a match made in heaven.

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How to make Cornish pasties FAQ

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Other recipes

Here are some of my other pie recipes you may enjoy:

• Curried chicken pies – crispy, flaky homemade pastry wrapped around tender pieces of tasty curry-flavoured chicken and vegetables.
• Granny’s homemade chicken pie with mushrooms – an old-fashioned pie with pastry top and bottom, packed with chicken and mushrooms in a rich creamy sauce.
• Meat and potato pie – a traditional English recipe made with meat and potatoes in a thick gravy covered with a layer of soft suet pastry.
• Puff pastry steak bakes – tender steak and onions baked in crispy puff pastry.
• Steak and kidney pie – succulent chunks of steak and kidneys in a delicious gravy, topped with crispy puff pastry.

The recipe

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