Cornish Pasty with Potato Pastry - Gluten Free

Before we came to live in France we had a house purchase fall through in the UK, in Cornwall, an old house on a hill overlooking the sea. In a strange twist of fate we ended up across the channel in an old French house and if you climb up one of the trees in the garden, you can still see almost the same bit of sea. 

So although we love living here, every now and again when we have a pang of remorse for what could have been and want to wallow in nostalgia, we make a Cornish Pasty for our supper.

 

What is a Pasty and How Does it Differ From a Pie

Mining started in Devon and Cornwall in the Bronze age around 4,000 years ago. Once a world leader in tin production, in its heyday, Cornwall boasted 2,000 tin mines. It also had copper mines and in the 18th century the area around Camborne (home to the World famous College of Mining) produced so much copper, that it was known as “the richest square mile in the old world”. Mining is an incredibly energy-consuming job and miners had to eat well and because of the nature of their work, they often ate 'on the hoof' underground and without recourse to hand-washing facilities. To this end the pasty was invented or at least adapted from a 13th century recipe, to their needs. A unique form of folded pie which held within its golden wheat-flour crust, a complete meal of meat, potatoes, vegetables and gravy, the pasty has two disposable pastry ends. This way the substantial pasty could be held in both of the miner's hands using these 'handles' or 'ears', which he could then throw away at the end of the meal. The pasty also had a unique shape in that it stood upright, with the pasty crenelations, crimped along the topmost edge, somewhat like the back of a dragon, for which Cornwall is also famous.

 

What Goes Into a Pasty?

The answer is anything and everything and there's an ancient myth that the Devil would never cross the Tamar river into Cornwall 'because he was afraid of ending up in a pasty'. There are some wonderful pasty shops in Cornwall which prove this point and have serried ranks of seemingly hundreds of varieties and I remember a particularly wonderful one in Tintagel, which ships its pasties around the World! Basically however, whatever you would put on a plate to eat for your lunch or dinner can be wrapped in pastry and made into a pasty.

....and as always there was a gourmet version:

And half cut down, a pasty costly-made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks

Imbedded and injellied.........

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Audley Court (1842)

 

Ingredients - Potato Pastry Dough

Makes 3 pasties - 1 large, 1 medium, 1 small

4 large potatoes (2¾lbs or 1.25kg)

Lard or butter for greasing the baking tin/pan

Rice flour for dusting

Salt and black pepper 

 

Ingredients - Filling  

Please note I make up this filling the night before - eat half and keep the rest to make the pasties - that way the flavour increases and compliments the potato!

1½ cups - 12oz - 350g of minced beef

1 onion

2 Sweet Bell Peppers - I used red and black

1 carrot

2¼ cups - 1 Imperial Pint - 500ml of tomato purée (mine's homemade, so you will need less if it is concentrated)

½ teaspoon each of: coriander seeds, mustard seeds and cumin seeds

3 bird's tongue aka pili pili aka piri-piri chillies

 

Preheated Oven

430°F - 220°C

 

Prepare the Potatoes

Peel the potatoes, chop into chunks and boil until they are firm but can be easily pierced with a fork. Set aside to cool. Mash with a hand masher.

 

Prepare the Filling 

Peel and chop the onion.

Peel and slice the carrot.

Chop the peppers.

Dry fry the spice seeds and chopped chillies in a heavy frying pan until the mustard starts to crackle.

Place seed into a pestle and mortar and grind to a fine powder.

Soften the onion in a heavy-bottomed pan with a little lard.

Add peppers and carrot and continue until they are soft.

Add the spices.

Stir and cover to let the flavours develop (about 5 minutes).

Add the meat and mix well.

Lower heat and leave to cook slowly until meat is cooked (about 20 minutes).

Add tomato tomato purée heat mixture, stirring frequently, until it starts to simmer.

Take off heat. Leave to cool.

 

Prepare the Potato Dough

Dust board and rolling pin with rice flour.

Work the mashed potato into a ball.

Break the dough in half and reform into two balls.

Take one dough ball and roll out on the board in an ellipse shape and to a thickness of around ⅛" to a ¼" - 3mm to 6mm.

For this large pasty I am going to cheat and leave it lying on its side but in fact some traditional Cornish Pasties are made in this way. So prick the pastry around a half of the dough that will be folded over the filling. This will keep the dough crisp as it allows any steam to escape from the filling.

Grease your pie tray.

Slide the pastry from the board onto the tray.

You are now ready to fill the large pasty.

 

Make the Pasty

Remove spoonfuls of filling with a slotted spoon to allow for the liquid to drain from the mix. This excess liquid can be made into a sauce to accompany the pasty or saved and if needed, frozen as a stock for future use.

Place enough filling in one half of the pasty shape to fill it but allow for the easy closure and sealing of the dough.

Fold over the dough to cover the filling, making any necessary adjustments by adding or subtracting mash.

Seal the pasty by pinching or crimping the edges between the index finger and thumb.

Divide the rest of the dough, taking ⅔ to make the medium pasty and leaving the remainder for the small.

Repeat as for the large pasty but once rolled both these sizes can be moved with a fish slice onto the tray. The pastry should also be pricked everywhere except where the filling will go (see photo and below).

Place the filling around the middle of the ellipse, leaving room to form the handles at each end.

Fold the edges up to meet each other and crimp together.

 

Variations on a Theme

These pasties make great festive snacks. We often make tiny pasties as appetisers or for a first course.

There is a type of pasty that goes even further with the 'full meal in a pastry wrapper' idea and has two chambers within, one of which is filled with jam. That way you get dessert too! I'm not sure how this would work with potato but it is definitely something we will be trying with the pastry version.

Hope you've enjoyed this nostalgic trip to Cornwall. 

If you enjoyed this recipe then please feel free to comment and share it with your friends and on social media.

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

All the very best,
Sue

©  Sue Cross 2020

Thanks to the Pinterest boards of

thetravelgearreviews.com for the poster of Polperro

and the Camborne School of Mines, Exeter University

RELATED POSTS

More potato party snack and/or main meal recipes:

Potato heart-shaped canapés à la provençale Gluten-free

This Mazagran  is one with a difference, for when I looked at making an à la provençale version..read more

Individual Potato Pies à la Clamart -Gluten-free

I've been making these for years, unaware that they had an official French culinary name...read more

Mini Potato Pies à l'Andalouse - Gluten-free

Another version of the filled potato pie. A l'Andalouse, a blaze of colour and with its spicy interior brings all the warmth of a Southern Summer back to...read more

French Potato Pies With Braised Red Cabbage - Mazagran à la flamande - Gluten-free

My filling for this mazagran is one we eat regularly as a vegetable dish, it's rich, satisfying and redolent of sunny Autumn days and misty mornings....read more

Kartoffelpuffer With Fresh Fig & Prosciutto Di Parma - Gluten-free

Kartoffelpuffer aka German potato pancakes are used for both savoury and sweet toppings.  As a base for a gluten-free dish kartoffelpuffer are extremely...read more

 

Baked Organic Quail Egg in a Nest - Gluten-free

A variant of a dish we used to eat regularly at home on the farm when I was a child. ..read more

Sausage & Mash on a Stick - Gluten-free

A British traditional recipe on a stick. One of the Tavern dishes which was not pastry-based and is still a favourite pub meal today...read more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mini Potato Pies à l'andalouse. Mazagran with spicy sausage & red peppers. Gluten-free

Here is another version of the mazagran or filled potato pie. Mazagran  à l'andalouse is a blaze of colour and with its spicy interior brings all the warmth of a Southern Summer back to a Winter buffet. On days when the wind is howling in across the Atlantic from the West and the rain transforms the garden into a sea of mud, these little pies of delicious and sunshine soaked, brightly coloured pimentos, red onions  and peppers work their magic! They epitomise the rhetorical question in Shelly's concluding words to Ode to the West Wind:

'If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?'

TEMPERATURES

Preheat the oven to 220°C or 425°F

à l'Andalouse

The term  in French cooking refers to a mix of pimento, chipolata and onion. To me chipolata is much too tame for Andalusia and I would be thinking chorizo but this dish really requires fresh meat rather than a dried sausage and in France we only get the latter type. Therefore, I choose to add merguez a spicy sausage from North Africa, which is also very popular in the Middle East and in France forms the basis of couscous dishes. As I remember Andalusia, its rich history, fabulous architecture and world renowned cuisine, influenced by many cultures, including Moorish,  I believe this ingredient not out of place in a dish with the title à l'Andalouse.

Merguez are made of beef and/or lamb and also sometimes of poultry. They have a distinct rich red colour which comes from the spices used in their confection. Every charcutier or chef has well-guarded secrets as to the blending of merguez spices but some of the most common are: hot chillies, cumin, fennel, paprika, sumach and coriander.

INGREDIENTS

(makes 16)

For the 'Pastry':

4 medium to large potatoes
A knob of butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
White rice flour for dusting

For the Filling:

1 Merguez cut into small pieces
1 large red pepper
1 medium red onion
½ a Piment d'Espelette (do not include all the seeds!) or chilli of your choice*
Salt and pepper
Butter or a suitable oil for cooking.



* Having read around the subject the nearest taste to Espelette seems to be Organic Ground Cayenne

METHOD

For the 'Pastry':

Boil the potatoes whole and in their skins until firm but cooked well enough so that  a fork will pierce them easily. Peel and then mash with a hand masher, thus avoiding any chance of the potato becoming 'gluey'. Add salt and pepper and the butter. Set aside to cool.

For the Filling:

Sauté the onions, chillies, red pepper in butter in a heavy bottomed pan until they begin to soften. Add the pieces of merguez, cover the pan with a lid  and cook until the meat has turned brown. Season with salt and pepper and then cook, stirring occasionally until any liquid is reduced and you have a thick sauce. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. At this point I mash it slightly with a potato masher just to make it smoother and easier to spoon onto the potato.

ASSEMBLING THE MAZAGRANS

Mazagrans were traditionally cut out with round fluted cutters and in fact for the first  à l'Andalouse I made I used these and when they were cooked I thought they looked good, (see above). However, I recently bought a set of four different shaped biscuit cutters in three different sizes because, firstly I thought the Mazagran would look more interesting when there was a whole flock of them on a buffet table.  Secondly, when they came out of the oven, it was a lot easier for me to keep track of what filling was in which!

Dust your pastry board and rolling pin with rice flour. Work with a handful of pastry at a time, it's easier that way. Roll it out and add more rice flour if the potato begins to stick to either the board or pin. Using a cutter of your choice, I liked the large heart for this, cut out the 'pastry' shapes. When you have cut the first one and with the cutter still in place move it slightly from left to right. If it slides easily and the potato moves with it then the rice flour is doing its work. I was so happy to find this solution, as I tried first with potato flour and it was nowhere near as successful!

Place the shapes onto a buttered baking tray.

Cut the lids so you will be ready to assemble them immediately you have positioned the filling. Prick the lids with a fork to allow for any excess moisture to escape.

Place one teaspoonful of the mixture on each heart leaving a border to allow for a good seal when positioning the potato lid. Make sure to press around the edges of the heart gently but firmly.

Cook for 10 to 15 minutes on the top shelf of the oven, but check after 5 minutes to make sure they're not cooking too quickly. If they are, then move the tray down to the next level.

Serve warm.

Enjoy!

If you put the filling in when still warm the potato is steamed from the inside and does not hold its shape as well. They still taste good. Though from an aesthetic point of view are rather lacking!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from my 100 Gluten-Free Organic Party Foods Challenge!

All the best,

Sue

MORE MAZAGRANS & EXAMPLES OF HOT APPETISERS

Potato heart-shaped canapés à la provençale. 

The nineteenth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge. This Mazagran  is one with a difference, for when I looked at making an à la provençale version..read more

Individual Potato Pies à la Clamart. Gluten-free

The eighteenth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge. I've been making these for years, unaware that they had an official French culinary name...read more

Prawn Kedgeree Stuffed Eggs. Gluten-free

The twenty-sixth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Recipe Challenge. Kedgeree makes a great breakfast or supper dish and with its beautiful rich colours would grace any buffet table..read more

Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes à la Bonne Femme.

The twenty-seventh recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Recipe Challenge. Stuffed tomatoes are a standard classic French pre-takeaway takeaway and...read more

Kartoffelpuffer With Fresh Fig & Prosciutto Di Parma 

The eighth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge.  Kartoffelpuffer aka German potato pancakes are used for both savoury and sweet toppings.  As a base for a gluten-free dish kartoffelpuffer are extremely...read more

Baked Organic Quail Egg in a Nest.

The twelfth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge. A variant of a dish we used to eat regularly at home on the farm when I was a child. ..read more

Sausage & Mash on a Stick

The thirteenth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge. A British traditional recipe on a stick. One of the Tavern dishes which was not pastry-based and is still a favourite pub meal today...read more

 

RETURN TO MAIN CONTENTS PAGE 

RETURN TO 100 GLUTEN-FREE PARTY RECIPES CONTENTS 

©  Sue Cross 2017

Picture of lAlhambra thanks to the Pinterest board of thatsaudigirl3269.tumblr.com

Heart-shaped potato canapés with spicy tomato and anchovies. Open Mazagrans à la provençale

The  Mazagran I'm presenting here is one with a difference, for when I looked at making an à la provençale version, I thought it would be so pretty that I felt it would be a shame to cover it up with potato. This comes from the South East as the name suggests and normally includes aubergine, green beans and potato but for my version I'm using the provençale base, which is a thick tomato fondue. I'm also presenting it in the form of a pissaladière, a typically Southern French pizza-style street food, which I first tasted in the monégasque tomato version in the market of Monte-Carlo, many, many years ago.

To make these I decided on the medium heart-shaped biscuit cutter from my newly purchased set.

TEMPERATURES

Preheat the oven to 220°C or 425°F

INGREDIENTS

(makes 16)

For the 'Pastry':

4 small to medium potatoes
A knob of butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Rice flour for dusting

For the Spicy Tomato Fondue:

4 medium  tomatoes - chopped
1 small red onion - chopped
1 small red (sweet) pepper  - chopped

2 chopped chillies - I used French varieties; 1 mild fresh Piment de Bresse and one small hot dried d'Espelette Pepper* (including some of the seeds)

1 clove of garlic - finely chopped
butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper

* Piment d'Espelette is from the Basque country, which spans the borders of France and Spain and its cookery is hot, colourful and powerful. There is a link to one of its most famous dishes at the end of this article.

à la pissaladière

8 halved black olives
4 salted anchovies (rinsed in water)
herbes de Provence

METHOD

For the 'Pastry':

Boil the potatoes whole and in their skins until firm but cooked well enough so that  a fork will pierce them easily. Mash with a hand masher, thus avoiding any chance of the potato becoming 'gluey'. Add salt and pepper and the butter. Set aside to cool.

For the Spicy Tomato Fondue:

I made more than I needed because I was going to use it as a base for other dishes. When using chillies I find it better to make sauces in larger quantities because otherwise the flavour can get overpowering. This fondue freezes very well.

Sauté the onions, chillies, pepper and garlic in butter in a heavy bottomed pan until they begin to soften. Add the tomatoes, season and then cook, stirring occasionally until the liquid is reduced and you have a thick tomato sauce. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. At this point I mash it up with a potato masher just to make it smoother and easier to spoon onto the potato.

ASSEMBLING THE MAZAGRANS

Dust your pastry board and rolling pin with rice flour. Work with a handful of pastry at a time, it's easier that way. Roll it out and add more rice flour if the potato begins to stick to either the board or pin. Using a cutter of your choice, I liked the medium heart for this, cut out the 'pastry' shapes. When you have cut the first one and with the cutter still in place move it slightly from left to right. If it slides easily and the potato moves with it then the rice flour is doing its work. I was so happy to find this solution, as I tried first with potato flour and it was nowhere near as successful!

Place the shapes onto a buttered tray and once you have filled the tray put it in the oven for 5 minutes, after which the potato should feel slightly firm to the touch.

Place one teaspoonful of tomato fondue on each heart.

Split the anchovies and remove the backbone and fin (unless of course they are already filleted). Cut each fillet in half.

Place a piece of anchovy and half a black olive on each half and sprinkle with herbes de Provence or a similar favourite herb mix.

Cook in oven on the top shelf for a further 10 minutes but check after 5 minutes to make sure they are not cooking too quickly, if they are, move the tray down to the next level.

Serve warm.

Enjoy!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from my 100 Gluten-Free Organic Party Foods Challenge!

All the best,

Sue

RELATED ARTICLES

Individual Potato Pies à la Clamart. Gluten-free

The eighteenth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge. I've been making these for years, unaware that they had an official French culinary name...read more

Piperade The Taste of the Sun from South West France GLUTEN-FREE

In the dish of piperade, there is more of the Flamenco than the Java more of Miró than Monet. Piperade breaks the rules of classic cookery...read more

RETURN TO MAIN CONTENTS PAGE 

RETURN TO 100 GLUTEN-FREE PARTY RECIPES CONTENTS 

©  Sue Cross 2017

Individual Potato Pies à la Clamart. Mazagran with petits pois and raw cream. Gluten-free

I've been making these in the larger version for years, neither aware that they had an official French culinary name nor that they were traditional gluten-free hors d'oeuvres! I tend to read cookery books, as I would novels and in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, Larousse Gastronomique and Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery, the recipes are but a fraction of the whole. The rest is history, husbandry, anecdotes and personal experience, all of which goes to make a 'damn good read'. Food and the way we prepare and consume it is part of our heritage, every dish tells us something about who we were and who we are today.

Most people may know the term Mazagran from the fashion of drinking ice cold, often ice-drip coffee from a distinctive glass or earthernware cup. It's actually quite an old fashion, as it dates back to the siege of Mazagran in 1840, when a group of French soldiers, as legend has it, were obliged to drink cold coffee with water rather than their usual hot coffee with brandy. This however, does not explain how in Larousse Gastronomique, the term also refers to an oven-baked potato pastry pie, 'filled with a salpicon...or similar preparation'. There are Algerian Maakouda or fried potato cakes, which are sometimes baked but not filled. Thus, Mazagran could be a regional version or perhaps people used the distinctive Mazagran cup to cut out the potato pastry... whatever the explanation, they are delicious! However, if any one knows the exact reason for this name, I would be very interested.

PETITS POIS FASHION & MANIA

When we think of Catherine de Medici it may not be cookery that first springs to mind. With her marriage to Henry II in 1533 and as part of her dowry, she brought with her from the Florentine court a whole host of chefs, cooks, gardeners, and viticulturalists, who would change the cuisine of France and establish it as one of the greatest in the World. Many French dishes today were founded on Catherine's dowry in the way of new seed varieties and the manner of harvesting and preparing vegetables. One example was Cassoulet, the chief ingredient being the famous Tarbais bean and another was the fashion for petits pois. Until the arrival of Catherine, peas had been grown only in the varieties suitable for harvesting and drying for Winter use. Famously due to their protein content and ease of storage, the armies of France marched not just on their stomachs but more specifically on peas. The Florentine Court consumed peas fresh and also consumed them young. 

Old habits die hard however, and it was not until the late 1600s, when a French nobleman returned from Genoa  with fresh peas and presented them to Louis XIV,  that they became incredibly fashionable. The craze for eating them when immature, of course meant that they were so small that the price rose to accommodate the need for early harvesting and thus diminished yields. High prices only fuelled 'the fashion and madness for petits pois', as Madame de Maintenon, the King's mistress and later his second wife, wrote in a letter to cardinal Cardinal de Noailles in May, 1696:

'Petis pois continue to be a fascinating  topic. The  expectation of eating them, the pleasure of eating them and the anticipation of eating more of them are three subjects which our princes have been discussing for three days.'

To have them as fresh as possible for the noble tables of Paris, areas in its vicinity were dedicated to the culture of petits pois. For their extensive market gardens comprising pea fields, towns such as Saint-Germain and Clamart had recipes named after them which incorporated this new fashion for eating little immature peas. This is one of the easiest of the mazagran fillings but it is nonetheless very tasty. So let's make mazagrans à la Clamart.

TEMPERATURES

Preheat the oven to 220°C or 425°F

INGREDIENTS

(makes 16)

For the 'Pastry':

4 medium to large potatoes
A knob of butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
White rice flour for dusting

For the Filling:

16 heaped teaspoonfuls of cooked petits pois
1 tablespoon of fresh raw cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper

METHOD

For the 'Pastry':

Boil the potatoes whole and in their skins until firm but cooked well enough so that  a fork will pierce them easily. Peel and then mash with a hand masher, thus avoiding any chance of the potato becoming 'gluey'. Add salt and pepper and the butter. Set aside to cool.

For the Filling:

Mash the peas and cream together to obtain a smoothish paste - I preferred to still have some texture to my petits pois as this makes a good contrast to that of the potato pastry. 

ASSEMBLING THE MAZAGRANS

Mazagrans were traditionally cut out with round fluted cutters and in fact for the first ones I made I used these. However, I recently bought a set of four different shaped biscuit cutters in three different sizes because, firstly I thought they would look more interesting on a buffet table and secondly it was a lot easier for me to keep track of what filling was in which!

Dust your pastry board and rolling pin with rice flour. Work with a handful of pastry at a time, it's easier that way. Roll it out and add more rice flour if the potato begins to stick to either the board or pin. Using a cutter of your choice, I liked the medium heart for this, cut out the 'pastry' shapes. When you have cut the first one and with the cutter still in place move it slightly from left to right. If it slides easily and the potato moves with it then the rice flour is doing its work. I was so happy to find this solution, as I tried first with potato flour and it was nowhere near as successful!

Place the shapes onto a buttered tray.

Cut the lids so you will be ready to assemble them immediately you have positioned the filling. Prick the lids with a fork to allow for any excess moisture to escape.

Place one teaspoonful of the pea and cream mixture on each heart leaving a border to allow for a good seal with the potato lid. Make sure to press around the edges of the heart gently but firmly.

Cook for 10 to 15 minutes on the top shelf of the oven, but check after 5 minutes to make sure they not cooking too quickly. If they are, then move the tray down to the next level.

Serve warm.

Enjoy!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from my 100 Gluten-Free Organic Party Foods Challenge!

All the best,

Sue

RELATED ARTICLES

Potato heart-shaped canapés à la provençale. 

The nineteenth recipe in my 100 Gluten-free Party Food Challenge. This Mazagran  is one with a difference, for when I looked at making an à la provençale version..read more
 

RETURN TO MAIN CONTENTS PAGE 

RETURN TO 100 GLUTEN-FREE PARTY RECIPES CONTENTS 

©  Sue Cross 2017
Thanks to the Pinterest Boards of i.pinimg.com for The Marriage of Catherine de Medici and Invaluable.com for the Dali Mazagran service