Nothing makes me think of Summer more than a homemade Cornish Pasty… especially now that our nice hot weather is playing hard to get. The thrill lies in cooking and eating the fuel for the chase!

For 5 large pasties, you will need:

For the pastry:
8oz plain flour
6oz butter
1 tsp golden caster sugar
1 free-range egg yolk
Pinch of salt
A few tbsp water

For the delicious filling:
Lean minced beef (ideally 5% fat)
3 large carrots
1 red onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp of good stock
Potatoes (I used 6 mid-size Charlotte potatoes)
Extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp dried Herbes de Provence

First of all, you’re going to make the buttery, rich shortcrust pastry.

Sift the flour with a pinch of salt into a large mixing bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and cover the butter in the flour, then rub together with your fingertips to create fine golden breadcrumbs.

Stir in the caster sugar and add the egg yolk.

Add a little water and mix together to form a firm dough.

Cover with cling wrap and put the bowl into the fridge.

Now it’s onto the filling – scrumptious. Finely chop your red onion and crush your garlic.

Peel your carrots and dice them into tiny cubes.

Drizzle olive oil into a large saucepan and add the onions, garlic and minced beef and break it up carefully and keep stirring until it’s brown all over. Add a sprinkling of dried herbs and stock and stir. Pour some boiling water over so that it’s just covering the beef and onions to stop them from catching at the bottom of the pan. Keep it cooking and top up with water when needed.

In a separate small saucepan, boil your peeled and diced potatoes and once they’re done add them to the beef mix and stir.

Top up with extra boiling water and stir to keep the beef nice and tender while it cooks.

After about an hour, fetch your (now very chilled out) pastry from the fridge. Roll it out onto a lightly floured surface and cut circles out of the pastry (I used a mid-size cereal bowl as a pastry cutter) and place them in an oven dish, ideally draped slightly around the edges.

Fill your pastry cases with the beef and vegetable mix…

And simply fold and crimp and form into pastries!

Pop them into the oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes, turning each one over halfway through cooking.

Prepare some green vegetables for the side (I went for some roasted courgettes – sliced down the middle with a little olive oil drizzled over and thrown in the oven alongside the pasties) and serve together!

Enjoy outside… if weather permits.

Pasty pasties pastries
with their usual panache,
a crimping pastiche
of braided hair,
pockets and princes
princely rings strum
around the plate.
Circulate.