Day: December 29, 2020

Hot Fuzz moment

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Taking a pootle to stretch out legs along the lakeside, Katy and I ran into a juvenile cygnet just standing in the middle of walking path, looking bemused but otherwise fine. People are walking around it, dogs are walking right up to it, nothing registers. We stood there for a good 5 minutes looking at it. It’s not obviously in distress, but this ain’t normal swanish behaviour. We called the Morges police and they said they woukd send someone ’round to have a look. We carried on with our walk and it was still there on the way back, except now it’d gone for a massive dump and was now taking a nap…

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[recipe] Cornish pasties

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350g good-quality beef skirt, rump steak or braising steak
350g waxy potatoes
200g swede
175g onions
salt and freshly ground black pepper
knob of butter or margarine
Two rounds of pre-made shortcrust pastry

Peel and cut the potato, swede and onion into cubes about 1cm square. Cut the beef into similar sized chunks. Put all four ingredients into a bowl and mix. Season well with salt and some freshly ground black pepper, then put the filling to one side.

Lightly grease a baking tray with margarine (or butter) and line with baking or silicone paper (not greaseproof).

Preheat the oven to 170C (150C fan assisted)/325F/Gas 3.

Divide the dough into four equal-sized pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and use a rolling pin to roll each ball into a disc roughly 25cm/10in wide (roughly the same size as a dinner plate).

Spoon a quarter of the filling onto each disc. Spread the filling on one half of the disc, leaving the other half clear. Put a knob of butter or margarine on top of the filling.

Carefully fold the pastry over, join the edges and push with your fingers to seal. Crimp the edge to make sure the filling is held inside – either by using a fork, or by making small twists along the sealed edge. Traditionally Cornish pasties have around 20 crimps. When you’ve crimped along the edge, fold the end corners underneath.

Put the pasties onto the baking tray and brush the top of each pasty with the egg and salt mixture. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 45 minutes or until the pasties are golden-brown. If your pasties aren’t browning, increase the oven temperature by 10C/25F for the last 10 minutes of cooking time.

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