INSTRUCTIONS
First, cut the beef into very small chunks, place in a bowl then peel the vegetables. The potato and swede also need to be finely chopped otherwise they won’t cook through. The best way to do this is to use your peeler to produce thin slices and then use your knife on a chopping board to finish. Once complete, add them to the bowl with the beef. Now finely chop the onion and add to the bowl along with the ale. Mix thoroughly and place in the fridge for a couple of hours or more preferably overnight.
When ready to assemble the pasties, drain the filling and ale mix through a fine sieve, retaining the liquor and pressing down on the filling so that the filling is not too wet. Place the liquor into a saucepan, bring to the boil and reduce by half. Sprinkle 1/2 a teaspoon of salt into the filling and a generous amount of black pepper before adding back about 1/2 of the reduced liquor and mixing thoroughly. Put to one side.
Next roll out your pastry to approximately 1/2 cm thick before cutting out four circles using a small dinner plate as a guide. If you find you can only get three, combine the trimming to provide pastry for the fourth. Once the circles have been prepared, divide the filling between the four, placing the filling just to one side of centre. Now brush the edge of the pastry with water and fold it over so that the edge you are folding over sits approx 1.5 cms inside the other. Press down gently to seal then fold over the overlapping edge and crimp using a fork. Place the egg in a cup and beat before glazing the pasty using a pastry brush.
Place on a baking tray that has been covered with greaseproof paper making sure you leave a reasonable gap between the pasties as they with expand during cooking. Bake in the oven at 200oC for 15 minutes before lowering the temperature to 160oC and cooking for a further 45 minutes. Once complete, allow them to rest for 5 minutes before serving. You wont need anything else, as they are a meal in themselves.
