Maggie's gourmet pasties.

This week’s Friday baking club has been a bit hampered by a cold that just won’t go away. Anyway I decided to rest on Friday and baked on Saturday instead. Inspiration for this week has been a couple of weeks in gestation, as I’ve been dreaming of savory pastry treats. Up in Blackheath it was pies and puff pastry and last week it was pasties. I’d even flicked through a few recipe books and had decided on a recipe but I was hampered by the pre-bug as I spent most of the weekend tired and recovering from boxing, swimming and cycling with a spot of vintage furniture shopping thrown in. So alas the pasties didn’t get made.

Anyway this week I was determined to get into the kitchen and give Maggie Beer’s recipe for Spicy Pork and Apple pasties a go. Maggie has a few recipes that use gluten free pastry, this one is her cream cheese one. I’d not heard of it before and it intrigued me so decided to give it a go. Be warned though it is a coronary giving recipe with 500g cream cheese and 300g of butter for a measly eight pasties! Oh well I suppose we only live once and it’s always good to try new things.

So come Saturday morning arrived and I kicked off my making the pastry and soaking the fruit first before going to the osteopath. For me the pastry was the most daunting thing about the recipe as I didn’t have a food processor so I had to rub in 800g of shortening into 4 cups of flour by hand! A friend had mentioned that I might be able to use my mixer as she remembered her mum doing the same thing so after rubbing in about three quarters of the shortening and the dough didn’t look like forming a ball I got Kitchen Aid down and gave it a whirl with a flat beater. Now I wouldn’t recommend you use it straight away as you’d have flour flying everywhere especially when the butter and cream cheese is hard and the flour is just up to under the lip of the bowl, but worked OK once I given it a reasonable go by hand. I finished off with the dough hook and it came together in a ball and I just gave it a quick working over by hand in the bowl. And the pastry was reasonably easy to work into rounds between baking paper. Although in the future I’d try to go a smidge thinner.

Now compared to the pasties of my childhood these are rather gourmet with dried fruit, pine nuts, honey cinnamon and ginger, not to mention the fancy pastry and the pork mince! I’m more used to beef mince and grated carrot, potato, parsnip, turnip, parsley and bit of chopped onion. And super thin pre-rolled puff pastry. Having said that, the pastry holds it shape well and browns up a treat and although they are salty and cheesy meaning having more than one in a sitting is a challenge, they are very tasty. And sometime in the not too distant future I’d be keen to give them another go with less salt and cheese and a more traditional filling and I’m sure they’d be tasty too. Anyway for another day. So here it is, Maggie’s pasties. Enjoy!

Spicy Pork and Apple Pasties (Maggie’s Kitchen by Maggie Beer)
Makes 8

1/3 c pine nuts
½c verjuice
¼c dried currants
1/3c dried apples, chopped
Olive oil for cooking
1 small onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1Tbsp ground ginger
1Tbsp ground cinnamon
2Tbsp honey
500g minced pork
¼ preserved lemon rind, chopped (or lemon rind)
2 eggs
¼c flat leafed parsley, chopped
1½ tsp sea salt
Ground black pepper
1 egg beaten with 1Tbsp pouring cream (or milk)
Pastry
500g chilled cream cheese cut into chunks
300g chilled unsalted butter, chopped
1 1/3c rice flour
1 1/3c maize/cornflour
1 1/3c potato flour
2 Tbsp salt (too much I’d only use 2 tsp)
8g xanthan gum

1. Roast or pan fry pine nuts until golden, set aside to cool.

2. Place ¼c of verjuice in each of 2 small saucepans, then add the currents to one and the dried apples to another. Heat both pans gently over low heat for a few minutes, then set aside to plum and cool (can also be done in bowls in the microwave for 1-2 minutes)

3. Heat a splash of olive oil in a small frying pan over low-medium heat, then saute onion and garlic until translucent but not coloured. Add ginger and cinnamon and cook for another minute or so until spices give off a rich scent; take care not to burn them. Remove from heat, stir in honey and leave to cool.

4. Put minced pork pine nuts, cooled onion mixture, soaked currants and apple mixtures (including the soaking juices), preserved lemon, eggs, parsley, salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

5. For the gluten free pastry: if doing by hand - whisk flours, xanthan gum and salt in a large bowl, rub in butter and cream cheese until a ball of dough is formed. If you have a kitchen aid or mixer some of this may be able to be done using the flat beater. If using a food processor pulse cream cheese and butter until combined. Add flour, salt and xanthan gum, then whiz to just combine scraping down the side of the bow with a spatula. If the dough doesn’t come together to form a ball add a little chilled water – 1 Tbsp at the most.

6. Turn dough out onto a bench dusted with a little extra gluten-free flour. Bring dough together with your hands, then knead for 3-4 minutes or until it forms a ball. Although this pastry does not need to be chilled for a long time, it is easier to handle if placed the refrigerator for 5 minutes before rolling out.

7. Divide dough into 8 even pieces, then roll out each piece, one at a time, between 2 pieces of baking paper to make a 3mm thick round (about the size of a side plate)

8. Divide filling into eights, then place one-eight on the bottom half of each pastry round. Fold pastry over to encase the filling, then fold over the edges thickly to seal, trimming off any excess pastry. Brush with egg wash made by beating egg with cream, then place on baking tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes.

9. Preheat fan forced oven to 230C

10. Bake pasties for 20-25 minutes or until golden then serve.

Left over pastry can be combined and kept in the fridge for a few weeks. It can be used to make a quick cheese tart or topped with fruit such as apples, pears or berries for a sweet tart.

Baked 18 September 2010