Pastiliciosity

A certain Old Grey Poet is to blame for the advent of these gorgeous critters. All he had to do was mention pasties and I was yearning, lusting, craving my own meal of this ancient and totally satisfying treat. We speak, Coffee Mates, of the famous Cornish Pasty.

If you are new to the phenomenon, you need to know they are pronounced PASS-tee. If you pronounce them PACE-tee, you're talking about the doodads strippers attach to their bazooms and that's a whole nuther endeavor entirely. If you pronounce them PAWS-tee, you might be from Australia. Or, I been told, certain locations in Montana. For information on pasty history (a long and honorable one), pictures and recipes, all you need do is Google Cornish Pasty and you'll have a ton of links to follow and enjoy.

I first learned about them when living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where the standard filling was diced meat, diced potatoes, onions and turnips. Sometimes carrots. If you prefer, you can use ground meat instead of diced and you can add whatever blend of vegetables you have on hand that appeals to you. The result is a full meal you can eat in your hand -- sort of the original Hot Pockets, only better.

The filling I used was a mixture of elk meat, potato and onion, seasoned with salt, pepper and onion powder, and topped with a few thin pats of butter. I'd have loved to add some turnip or rutabaga but didn't have any. So be it. Oh! Almost forgot -- I baked 'em at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

The neat thing I want to share with you, though, is the crust recipe I tried for the first time. I think it's absolutely perfect for a pasty crust. There are variations you can Google but this is basically what I did:

SOUR CREAM CRUST

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1/4 to 1/2 cup sour cream

Cut butter into flour and salt. Whisk egg and sour cream together and stir rapidly into flour mixture, just until dough forms. You may or may not have to add more sour cream. Play it by ear. When dough has formed, divide in half, form into patties, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least an hour.

About the sour cream: I started with a quarter cup and kept adding more, a heaping spoonful at a time. One never knows how much moisture flour is going to need on a given day. You just sort of feel it out and go with the flow. You can leave the dough in the refrigerator for a couple of days before using. I made this batch yesterday so it was 24 hours before I took it out. It rolls out easily and smoothly, handles like a dream and bakes up tender and flaky. The important thing here is, although tender, it's still sturdy enough so it holds up without falling apart in your hands while you're trying to eat.

Yes, you eat pasties with your hands. Put the silverware back in the drawer.

See the photo below? I was going to eat the whole dinner plate-sized critter. That's how hungry I was. I only got two-thirds of the way through one half. That's how filling pasties are. Sometimes I like to make a hot dipping sauce to go with a pasty meal but tonight I elected to just eat it naked. I mean the pasty was naked. I was fully clothed. No need to frighten the horses.

Fortunately, pasties are just as good cold as they are hot so I can go back to the uneaten half later without having to heat anything up. Maybe I'll fix some chipotle cheese sauce to go with the other pasty tomorrow. In any case, thank you, John, for such a lovely, beguiling suggestion. Even my tummy is smiling tonight.