Hand-sized pastry turnovers filled with raw diced beef, potato, rutabaga and onion, baked until the crust is golden and the filling is tender. Brought to Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Cornish miners, the pasty became a local staple and is eaten by hand, hot or cold, with ketchup or gravy.
Ingredients
Instructions
Make the pastry. Whisk the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in the lard until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Mix the beaten egg with 3 tablespoons of the cold water, drizzle it over the flour and toss with a fork. Gather the dough, adding more water a tablespoon at a time if it stays crumbly, until it just holds together. Divide into 6 discs, wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 400°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, mix the beef, potatoes, rutabaga, onion, salt and pepper. The filling goes into the pastry raw, so keep every piece of meat and vegetable small enough to cook through.
On a lightly floured surface, roll each disc into an 8-inch circle. Mound about 1 cup of filling over one half of each circle, leaving a border, and dot it with a little of the cold butter. Moisten the edge of the dough with water, fold the other half over the filling and press the edges together. Crimp the seam firmly with a fork or by folding it over like a pie crust.
Cut two or three small slits in the top of each pasty to let the steam escape. Set the pasties on the baking sheet, brush with the egg wash and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for 40 to 45 minutes more, until the crust is deep golden and the meat and vegetables are tender when you poke a knife through a slit.
Let the pasties cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Serve hot, with ketchup or gravy, or let them cool and eat them cold.
Notes
Rutabaga is the traditional ingredient in the Upper Peninsula. It is also sold as swede or yellow turnip. If you cannot find it, use turnips or parsnips.
Cutting the meat and vegetables small is the key to a pasty that cooks evenly. Because the filling bakes raw in the crust, large chunks of potato or rutabaga stay hard in the middle.
Pasties are made to be eaten out of hand. They keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days and in the freezer for up to 2 months, and reheat well in a 350°F oven.
The classic dilemma is what to put on top. In the Upper Peninsula, ketchup is the traditional choice, though many people prefer gravy.
Variations
Use half beef and half ground pork, as many family recipes do.
Replace the rutabaga with carrots, as Finnish cooks in the region did.
Season the filling with a little thyme or garlic powder.
Make a vegetarian pasty with extra potato, rutabaga and onion, plus some shredded cheddar.
Source
The pasty is a Cornish tradition. Cornish miners came to Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the mid-19th century, after the tin and copper economy of Cornwall declined, to work in the region's copper and iron mines. Around the same time, the Quincy Mining Company in Hancock recruited Finnish workers, and Finns became the area's largest ethnic group. A folklorist who has studied the region suggests that Finnish men in the mines and logging camps ate Cornish pasties, and that their wives probably learned to make them from Cornish women.
Today the pasty is firmly a "U.P. food," and bakeries and roadside stands across the peninsula sell them. Some early pasties had two fillings, a savory one at one end and a sweet fruit one at the other, so that a single pastry served as both dinner and dessert.