Cornish Pasty

These make great snacks for TV viewing and are also good for packing up.

Ingredients:

Pastry:

• ½ lb Wholemeal Flour
• 4 ounces Margarine
• 1 teaspoon Salt

Filling:

• 1 cup Buckwheat Groats*
• 3 cups Water
• 1 tablespoon Salt
• 2 tablespoons Peanut Oil
• 1 small Onion chopped
• Freshly ground Black Pepper
• 1 Carrot
• 1 medium sized Potato

* It is possible to buy buckwheat that is already roasted. If you do this, then omit the roasting part of the recipe. I would recommend that you roast your own.

Method:

Pastry:

Place the flour and the salt in a bowl and rub in the fat until the mixture looks a little like breadcrumbs. Add a little water (a teaspoon at a time) and mix until the mixture forms a stiff dough. But in a bowl and cover with a cloth.

Filling:

Dry-roast the buckwheat evenly in a deep sided saucepan until brown - stir consistently otherwise they will burn. Add the water (some recipes suggest boiling water but considering the fact that you have just roast the buckwheat, this is a little dangerous) and salt and boil for around 20 minutes until the water has been absorbed. This product is called Kasha and towards the end of the boiling process, should be stirred so that each grain remains separate. Let the Kasha cool down.

Peel the potato and carrot, dicing the latter, and boil until tender. Drain. Chop the potato into ½" cubes and add the potato and carrot to the Kasha.

In a wok (I have found this to be the best frying device unless you are making pancakes), add the oil and lightly fry the onion, seasoning with the pepper. Add to the Kasha and mix.

Pasties:

Roll out the pastry on flour to around ¼" and cut out circles, placing to one side. One by one, place the pastry circles on the floured surface, put a few spoonfuls of filling in them. Wet around the edge with water and fold in half to make the pasty shape, crimping the edges with your fingers to make the traditional pasty scallop edge.

Place on a greased baking tray and cook at gas mark 4 until brown (around 20 minutes).

Variations:

Add anything that you like to the filling:

1. Peppers;
2. Curry;
3. Tomatoes and so on

Change the flavour of the pastry:

1. Add cooked curry powder to the flour;
2. Poppy seeds;
3. Sesame seeds and so on.

Storage:

Store in the refrigerator for a few days. May be frozen with reheating in the microwave.

Serving suggestions:

Serve on its own, either cold or hot, with chips and so on. A filling snack for when you can't be bothered to cook. Good for packing up.

Note :- I have received a couple of e-mails from people pointing out that there is no meat in this recipe. In these litigious times, especially with regard to product liability, I must say that I am unable to recommend meat in a recipe as it fails to conform to expectations with regard to safety expectations, both long and short term.