Veggie Pasties with Puff Pastry

I can’t stop eating them!  This afternoon I had a brain wave of what to cook for dinner tonight – something we haven’t had for quite some time – veggie pasties.  Question was, do I use frozen puff pastry or make it myself which I’ve never attempted before.  Well it became the latter and now I’m never looking back.  These pasties were delicious and now I’m sitting here eating them cold and they’re just as amazing (trying to ignore the fact of how much butter there is in them!)

Veggie Pasties with Puff Pastry

So this is actually a Rough Puff Pastry as it’s a cheats version of combining the butter with the flour, made simply with the Thermomix rather than rubbing by hand, as opposed to a true puff pastry which has each layer of dough brushed with butter during the folding process.  According to Julia Child in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the number of layers can vary from 73 to 730 depending on outcome required.  A formula used to calculate this is (f +1)ⁿ where  f is the number of folds, and n the number of times the dough has been folded.  For example, twice folding 4 times (2 +1)⁴ = 81 layers or as I did twice folding 6 times (2 +1)⁶ = 729.

Flaky layers of buttery pastry...

Science aside the ingredients of your pastie but be left up to your imagination (or fridge and season availability).  And remember the key is to keep your pastry ingredients cold to retain the puff.   So don’t put it in the too hard basket give it a try and enjoy!

Rough Puff Pastry

250g plain flour

Pinch of salt
200g cold butter cubed
1 tbls lemon juice
100g iced water kept in fridge (1 MC)

• Place flour and salt in Thermomix bowl and pulse twice to sieve
• Add butter, lemon juice and cold water and set to Closed Lid Position and knead for 10-20 seconds.  If required add a little more water until it just comes together and knead for an extra 10 seconds
• Turn out into a cold lightly floured bench or thermomat and gently bring together into a large rectangle by hand.  Dough may still look marbled by butter
• Lightly roll with rolling pin to about 1cm thick then fold short ends to center
• Lightly roll out again and fold repeating a total of 4 -6 times until dough is smooth and butter has become more blended.
• Wrap in cling wrap or thermomat and refrigerate for around an hour while you prepare your filling ingredients

folding the pastry to the center before rolling out again...

Pastie Filling

50g tasty or gyuere cheese cubed

1 onion
1 clove garlic
Olive oil
2 small or 1 large potato cubed
Approx 150g cauliflower roughly chopped
1 carrot roughly chopped
1 silverbeet leaf
150g cooked green or brown lentils
1 MC frozen peas
1 MC corn kernels
1 tsp TM veggie stock
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp mixed dried herbs

• Place  cheese in Thermomix bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 5 then remove and set aside
• Place onion and garlic in bowl the chop for 3 seconds on speed 5 and scrape down
• Add a splash of olive oil and cook for 3 minutes on 100° speed 3
• Add potato, carrot, cauliflower and silver beet and set to Closed Lid Position and press Turbo 2-3 times until finely chopped but being careful not to overchop
• Add lentils, peas, corn, curry powder and herbs and cook for 8 minutes on 100° speed 1 Reverse
• Add cheese and mix for 3 seconds on speed 3 Reverse
• Allow to cool while continuing with pastry
• Preheat oven to 220°
• Remove dough from fridge and cut 5cm pieces to lightly roll out with rolling pin to around 0.5cm
• Trace a 10cm bowl into a circle and set aside to fill

cutting out circles for the pasties...

• Repeat with remaining dough and finally combing left over pieces also
• Place filling on 1 side of each circle, fold over pastry and pinch edges together

  

  filling before folding the pasties...

• Brush with beaten egg and place on a baking tray
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until puffed and golden