Friday, 6 April 2012

Onion & Potato Pasty.. Indian Style :)

I love pasties, they are wholesome and filling, the best thing to eat when you are starving after a nice walk or a workout, all the butter in the pastry does not make you feel that guilty :) I love the traditional pasties, but today I wanted to spice up my pasties and give them an Indian taste, quite simply by adding Indian spices! Here is what you need:
For Pasrty - Either use a store bought short crust pastry or make from scratch, the one I made will give you a crunchy and crusty texture, 3 simple steps and you have your base ready:
Plain flour - 225 gms
Butter - 100 gms
pich of salt
a good pinch of dried dill.

Preparing the pastry:
  1. Mix the flour, salt and dill in a roomy bowl.
  2. Make sure the butter is chilled, rub the butter in the flour mix until you get bread crumb like texture.
  3. Add cold water enough to get the dough together in a ball.
  4. Cover the dough with a cling film and let it sit in the refrigerator for atleast 30 mins.
While the pastry is sitting in the fridge, lets get on with the stuffing, takes the boring wait out of the way :)
Preparing the stuffing:
  1. Thinly slice 4 medium potatoes
  2. Chop a medium sized onion finely
  3. a good burnch of parsley
  4. 1 fat clove of garlic
  5. a pinch of grated ginger
  6. a good pinch of cumin and coriander powder
  7. a good pinch of garam masala
  8. 1 smallred chili
  9. a good squeeze of lemon
  10. a good pinch of onion / nigella seeds
  11. Salt to taste
Cook the stuffing:
  1. Add a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan and fry all the stuffing ingredients together, the idea is to cook them just enough to soften the potatoes, else they will turn in a mush when you bake it. I like to retain the shape of the vegetables when they bake in the pastry.
  2. Cooking everything on medium heat, once soft turn off the heat and let it sit for a while.
Preparing Pasty: Pre-heat the over to gas mark 6
  1. Turn to your pastry, while the stuffing cools down.
  2. Roll out the pastry in a round shape, make is as big as you like or as small as you like if you want to make them as snacks.
  3. Place the stuffing in the centre of theround pastry and seal the pastry by picking up both the side and pressing them together.
  4. Brush some milk on the pastry, this gives a nice crunchy texture when the pasty bakes.
  5. Bake the Pasty in the pre-heated oven for 25 mins.
Eat it while its piping hot, that's the beauty of it :) Even if you burn the roof of your mouth its worth it :)

1 comment: