Curried Potato Pasties

MUNCH RATING: 4/5

I made these ages ago but I didn’t take a photo because I couldn’t wait to eat them! Luckily I kept some in the freezer and we had them for lunch today. They were just as nice cooked from frozen.

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:
This recipe is from BBC Good Food, but I tweaked the recipe and added sweet potato, which adds a lovely sweet flavour and compliments the curry flavour. Because I added an equal quantity of sweet potato to normal potato, I had some leftover potato filling so I’m going to use it to make fish cakes.

I used the other 340g block of puff pastry (from the pack that I bought for the Duck Puffs) to make these tasty little pasties. I have changed the method for rolling out the pastry to make it easier.

• Makes 8 and I would serve 2 per person
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C
• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 30 minutes 

Ingredients:

• 300g/10oz potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
• 300g/10oz sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm dice (optional)
• 100g/4oz frozen peas
• 2 teaspoon oil
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1-2 teaspoon curry paste (I used 2 tsp curry powder, ½ tsp chilli powder and 1 Tbsp tomato ketchup instead)
• 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds (I didn’t use these)
• Juice of ½ lemon (About 1 tablespoon)
• handful coriander, chopped (I hate this stuff so didn’t use it)
• 340-375g block of ready-rolled puff pastry
• 1 egg, beaten 

Directions:

1. Heat a large pan of water, add the potatoes, then cook for 8 minutes until just soft. Add the peas 1 minute before the end of cooking time. Drain, then set aside.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion until soft and slightly coloured. Add the curry paste/powder mix and mustard seeds, then fry for a few minutes more until the mixture smells fragrant. Carefully stir in the potatoes and peas, trying not to mash them. Add the lemon juice and coriander, then leave to cool.
3. Heat the oven to Gas mark 6/400°F/200°C. Place your pastry block onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into 8 even sized rectangles. Roll each rectangle flat until it is approximately 3x5 inches in size. Place about a tablespoon of the potato filling onto one half of the rectangle, then brush the edges with beaten egg and then fold the pastry rectangle in half to cover the filling. Pinch the edges together along the 3 open edges to seal the parcel.
4. Place on a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper and brush with more egg and bake for 20 minutes until puffed up and golden brown. 

COOK'S NOTES:

• If you need to re-roll your puff pastry, stack the trimmings on top of each other to keep the layers. 
• Freezing: don’t brush with beaten egg if you want to freeze the pasties and cook for 30 minutes if cooking from frozen.

You might also be interested in: Duck Puffs

BBQ in the rain!

Here’s Steve doing a superb job of cooking us dinner on our portable BBQ, which we got from Firebox. It’s really cool because it folds really flat and comes in a carrying bag. They don’t sell this model anymore, but they have a new one which looks just as good: Portable BBQ Grill.

We put it on top of the big BBQ so that it was at a perfect height for cooking. There was only 4 of us, so it wasn’t worth cleaning up the big BBQ and the portable one was really good. This is only the second time we’ve used it, the last time was in West Wittering, when it also rained! Maybe it’s jinxed?

Unfortunately it did start to rain, but we persevered and just got the brolly out and then the rain stopped and we had a lovely meal outside in the Breeze House.

Grow your own Strawberries 2009

The photo below was taken 1 June:

We bought the strawberry plants last year and the fruits weren’t very nice! But I read that you shouldn’t grow fruits in the first year, you should just concentrate growing the leaves.

 

We did peg down the runners from last year into the lower parts of this pot, so we’ve got quite a few strawberries growing this year. I should have fed them with tomato feed once it had started flowering, but I was a bit late and most of the fruits had already developed! But I’ve fed them once and I’ll need to do it every 10 days.

 

 

 

 

 

The photo below was taken 13 June:

We had 1 strawberry that was going red, so I put my little net over the pot to protect it from the birds. But as it was hanging down something took it off the plant (I suspect a pesky squirrel) and just left it on the ground half eaten! If they’re going to take my fruit they could at least it eat! But more are starting to turn red and fingers crossed they will be sweet this year!

 

The photo below was taken 25 June:

Well we lost a few more strawberries to something having a nibble, so we put the strawberry planter on top of another pot turned upside down. It worked and I’ve been able to pick all the ripe strawberries without them being full of holes! Steve’s Mum did see a small black bird trying to eat them, but instead of sitting on the planter, he was on the floor and jumping up and down trying to peck the fruit! I think the word she used for the bird was ‘retarded’!

 

I have been picking them when they’re practically all red and then leaving them on a sunny windowsill to finish off ripening. To be honest they’re not very sweet, so I’ve been using them in smoothies!