I've already marvelled at that incredible sausage-covered, deep fried egg called the Scotch egg, and raved about HP Sauce, both of which I encountered at an English pub in Santa Monica, CA, Ye Olde King's Head.
Well here's another first that I loved during my happy hour there: Cornish pastie.
Wait! It's not what you think. It's pronounced "pastie" with a short "a," i.e. it rhymes with "nasty." It most certainly is not one of those tiny, round, nickel-sized stickers that "dancers" use to *ahem* cover up certain parts. The pastie is a type of savory pie, like a pot-pie, but it's held in your hands without the pot. I guess that makes it a hand-pie.
The pastie we ordered was very pretty, and to be quite honest, I couldn't figure out how the bar's kitchenwas able to bake such a perfectly domed pastry, filled with ground beef and vegetables in the little time that it seemed to take. Theycouldn't have used a microwave, because the pastry was dry and flaky.
The filling was very simple - just ground meat and vegetables, with no complicated spices or herbs. It seemed to have been mostly flavored with the natural juices from the meat. Of course,after I cut it open, I poured HP sauce into eachhalf.
The pastie originated as a way for tin miners in Cornwall to easily carry their lunch with them. The miners, whose hands would be covered with dirt from the mines, could hold the pastie at one end, eat it without touching the rest of it, then just throw away the little corner of the pastie that they had been holding.
I might have to add the Cornish pastie to my short list of things-that-are-like-wontons to try to make this year (one of my resolutions).
What Can I Get You Folks? - Server Revenge
Reality-Show Celebrities Serve Up Chef Curtis Stone's 'Hundred-Dollar Burger'
Foods Celebrity Chefs Hate
