Pumpkin Pork Pasty

Seasonal Variation on a Cornish Pasty

This little project has many steps and may seem a bit complicated, but it really isn’t. And the delicious result will very much be worth a little extra work! If you’re not up to making dough, or are looking for a gluten-free entrée, the Pumpkin Pork Pie filling can be covered in mashed potatoes for a seasonal Shepherd’s Pie instead. (see directions for the Shepherd’s Pie at very end of post.)

I came up with this idea after my Pumpkin Butter recipe yielded more than I was expecting. I wondered what else I could do to make the most of that spicy pumpkin flavor. Could it work in something savory? What if I substituted the pumpkin butter for something that used a tangy tomato sauce? Could that work? And then I thought of one of my ultimate comfort foods – Canadian Pork Pie. Since the pumpkin butter is highly spiced and there is an overlap in the spices I would use in my savory pork pie, this seemed like a great starting point for my culinary curiosity. I have Canadian family, in addition to my Scottish roots, so I was introduced to meat pies as a kid. But I didn’t try making my own pork pie until I was in high school. I loved how the recipe called for so many spices and scented the whole house as the meat filling simmered. I made it for a couple years and then forgot about it until I moved to New England. There is a strong contingent of French Canadians in the Manchester, NH area and pork pies were available for sale everywhere. Yum! I sampled many delicious versions and then dug out my recipe. I now make pork pie every winter. For this seasonal variation, I added a dice of sweet potatoes and parsnips into the meat filling, along with a little sage, and replaced stewed tomatoes with pumpkin butter. The spices in the pumpkin butter worked perfectly and the consistency also worked great.

From pie to pasty idea…

I am originally from Michigan and pasties are quite common now in the Midwest. Without knowing the historical background I considered them tasty, portable potpies. And as a novice baker who has never made her own piecrust before, somehow smaller rounds of pastry seemed like they would be easier to deal with. And once I started thinking about a patsy, I just couldn't stop wanting one! So I popped onto the computer to look up pasty dough recipes. The first one that caught my eye was from British chef-extraordinaire Jamie Oliver. He has a chicken “cowboy” pasty recipe and a most forgiving and tasty crust. (For his original recipe click here) I adapted his pasty dough recipe and followed his directions for rolling out, filling & baking the pasties.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons; Cornish pasty w/top cut off to show 2 courses - meat & veg on the left and sweet berries, "the afters" on the right; note decorative coiled crimp in dough)

  

Little History on the Cornish Pasty

Cornwall, England is the home of the original pasty and there are historical references to it going back to the 13^th Century. (See The Cornish Pasty Association website for more details.) Stateside, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is renowned for their Pasty passion. Cornish tin miners settled in the area in the 1800’s and became American copper miners. Currently the pasty can be found throughout the Midwest and other farther flung states, even in Florida. The original Cornish pasty was made with potato, swede (rutabega), and onion – meat came later. The pasty was the primary lunch for miners and farmers, offering a complete, compact & convenient meal. There are stories of large pasties with savory fillings at one end and sweet fillings at the other, to include dessert too - commonly called "the afters" - see photo above. And versions nowadays contain vegetable only, meat & vegetable, or sweets. An authentic Cornish pasty is always D-shaped, with an elaborate crimped border, and darkly browned glaze. (For a video demonstrating how the Cornish make them, click here) Since I am an absolute beginner with pastry – just bought my first rolling pin for this recipe! – my version has fork crimping. If you are more practiced and comfortable with dough, then hand crimping is the way to go.

One story behind the D-shape of the pasty suggests that it served as a handle for tin miners; they ate up to the crimping and then threw that part away as their hands were likely covered in arsenic. And soot. The tossed crusts had another purpose as well. According to folklore, many Cornish miners believed in "Tommyknockers" and appeased them by sharing parts of their lunch. (See Daryl Burkhard’s fun facts website here for more on Cornish mining superstitions.) Depending upon the source the "knockers" were either “small, dwarf-like creatures who made strange noises as they worked deep in the rocks,” or they were spirits of miners who had perished in the shafts, or they were souls who weren’t quite good enough for heaven but not quite bad enough for hell and were therefore trapped to work in the mine for eternity. Regardless of their origins, "Tommyknockers" were generally considered to bring good luck – sometimes warning of cave-ins or leading a miner to a rich vein. 

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons; Tamarack Miners, Copper Country, Michigan, 1905 - note metal lunch pails)

Now on to the cooking & baking!

You can make the filling or the pasty dough first. The filling needs to cool a bit before handling and the dough needs to chill for 30 minutes before rolling out. Do NOT scrimp on the fat in the pasty dough – you will need every bit for both moisture and taste.

Step 1: Pumpkin Pork Pie Filling

Ingredients:

1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 med white onion, minced

1 lb ground pork

1 cup pumpkin butter (see my recipe for easy homemade pumpkin butter here)

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium sweet potatoes, fine dice

1 medium parsnip, fine dice

¼ coarse salt

½ tsp dried sage

½ tsp black pepper

½ cup boiling water + ¼ cube of Celefibr vegetarian chicken bouillion (or ½ cup hot chicken broth)

½ Tbsp dried parsely

2 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions:

In deep sided skillet, sauté onion in olive oil, stirring with wooden spoon. Add in ground pork and brown the meat, breaking up with fork.

Add in pumpkin butter and mix in with wooden spoon to coat meat/onion mixture.

Add in garlic, sweet potatoes, and parsnips and stir to equally distribute thru mixture. Season with salt, pepper & sage. Cover and simmer over lower heat for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. You want the pumpkin butter to thicken a bit and the veggies to be fork tender. Mixture should stay moist.

Measure out hot water, drop in bouillion cube. Stir briskly w/long tined fork to encourage quick dissolving. Measure out the cornstarch and add evenly to broth, immediately mix vigorously to discourage any lumps. Measure out dried parsely, add to broth/starch mixture and stir vigorously.

When meat mixture is done simmering, check for doneness of potatoes & parsnips. If tender, add in broth/starch combination. Stir to incorporate. Cook for a few more minutes to thicken the sauce. Overall pumpkin sauce should be thick and moist, without being runny.

Remove mixture from heat and allow to cool a bit while you prepare next cooking steps.

VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN VERSION: leave out pork; substitute with vegetable broth. Could add soy protein crumbles to sub the meat. Or experiment with adding beans, lentils, squash or other veggies to get same volume for filling.

ALLERGENS: pork, corn

ALLERGY ACCOMMODATIONS: To replace pork, you could use beef or ground turkey, or see vegetarian suggestions above. To eliminate corn use another thickening agent like tapioca or potato starch.

Butter & water boiling

Pasty dough coming together in pot

Step 2: Pasty Dough

Adapted from Jamie’s America Cookbook

Ingredients:

1 flax “egg” (1 Tbsp ground flaxmeal + 3 Tbsp water)

1¼ cups water (300mL, 10 oz)

2 sticks butter + 2 Tbsp

4 cups wholewheat pastry flour

½ cup cornmeal

1 tsp sea salt

Directions:

Prepare flax “egg.” Cut parchment paper to fit a large cooking sheet, set aside.

Tablespoon of flaxmeal stirred into water

Flaxmeal after sitting & thickening

In a large pot bring water up to a boil, drop in butter. Once butter is melted, take off heat.

Using a spatula stir in flour gradually (1 cup at a time) and salt (1/4 tsp at a time) incorporating dry & wet ingredients to combine into dough. Add the ½ cup of cornmeal at the end. Mixture should come together smoothly, if still a bit crumbly.

Turn out dough onto floured, flat surface. Using your hands, knead a bit and shape dough into a large ball. Depending on humidity (and kitchen goddess) factors you may need to add a bit more water or flour to get a malleable, moist but not sticky dough.

Refrigerate the dough, in a plastic-wrapped bowl, for 30 minutes. (Jamie Oliver recommends flouring the bowl and top of the dough ball.)

 

Step 3: Pumpkin Pork Pasty

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pork pie filling, cooked

Pasty Dough, chilled

1 flax “egg,” gelled

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Roll out dough into 6½” rounds. I used an upside down ceramic cereal bowl and cut the dough around it. Then I transferred the dough from cutting board to parchment paper, carefully, using a spatula. The dough is quite forgiving of handling, so feel free to knead it again as necessary to reform a ball shape for rolling out.

dough round

brushed with flax "egg" and filled

Use pastry brush to brush the top of pasty with some of the flax “egg.” Use a tablespoon to mound meat mixture toward center of one half. Fold over the dough to form ½ circle and seal edges with fork tines.

Brush top liberally with some of the flax “egg.” The bits of flax meal spread out in a pretty pattern and add a bit of moisture, although you likely won’t get the same browning you would with an actual egg-wash. If you are not dealing with dairy allergies, you could do a milk wash to promote browning.

Repeat the process to fill up your cooking tray or trays. I got 8 pasties using all my dough. (And had enough pumpkin pork pie filling left for a medium size shepherd’s pie.)

Cook on parchment lined baking sheet for ~20 minutes until browned on bottom. May not brown too much on top. Serve hot or transfer from sheet to cookie rack to cool.

*Suggest reheating in oven to maintain crispness of crust. Reheating in the microwave will remove any hint of crispness and will dry out the pasty quite a bit.

VEGAN VERSION: use vegetable oil or margarine instead of butter

ALLERGENS: dairy (butter), wheat, corn

ALLERGY ACCOMMODATIONS: To eliminate wheat, use a gluten-free flour. To replace dairy (butter) use solid margarine or vegetable oil. To eliminate corn, leave out cornmeal. Plain water also works for getting the dough to stick to itself.

Pumpkin Pork Shepherd's Pie w/flax & paprika

Pumpkin Pork Shepherd's Pie serving

Alternate Step 3: Pumpkin Pork Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Pork Pie filling, cooked

Mashed potatoes, cooked

Regular or Smoked Paprika

Optional – 1 flax “egg”, gelled

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Pour meat mixture into 10 x 13 casserole dish. Spread evenly.

Distribute mashed potatoes evenly over the top. Take a fork and rake over the potatoes to create some peaks for better browning. (Optional – use a pastry brush and dab on some “flax egg” for a little extra fiber and color.) Sprinkle paprika over the top.

Bake in 400°F oven for 20 minutes, until golden on top and bubbling around the edges.