Sally’s Kitchen & Stuff

This makes for an impressive main dish, but really, MUCH easier than it looks. It is labour intensive though. I’ve modified the contents of the traditional Cornish pasties a bit so that it would SEEM more expensive, and used puff pastry instead of a pie crust to get a more manageable square shape. The steaks used in it can be anything, but since we’re cooking it to well-done, getting well-marbled expensive beef is a waste. Just get the cheapest cut you can find.

I would suggest making EVERYTHING ahead and taking the baking sheet of pasties out of the fridge to bake 30 minutes before serving. With so many steps, things could get a big hectic.

Ingredients
1 Cup of Chinese chicken marinade
3 small 4 oz "marinating" steaks
1 Cup chicken broth
2 small onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Cups of sliced carrots
2 Cups of Cremini mushrooms, roughly cubed
2 + 4 TBSP butter / margarine
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
2 sheets of pre-rolled puff pastry (I used President’s Choice)
1 eggs and 1 TBSP water, whisked together

Instructions
Marinade steaks overnight in a freezerbag. I used chicken marinate for its sweet and salty flavour, but if you don’t have it, you can use soysauce, a bit of ginger, and a couple of tablespoon fulls of brown sugar. Brown steaks on both sides - don’t "cook" it, just brown it. Let it cool, cube them, and slice off any extra fat.

In the pan where you browned the steaks, pour in the chicken broth to deglaze the pan. Add onions and saute until lightly browned. Add garlic and carrots and cook until the carrots lose their bite. Set the mixture aside. In a clean pan, cook mushrooms on medium heat with 2 TBSP butter until soft. Add mushrooms to previously cooked mixture.

Now this might be a bit tricky. Melt the 4 TBSP of butter in a pan on medium heat, add flour. Using a wire whisk, whisk constantly, adding hot broth/water a dribble at a time to turn the roux into a white-ish sauce. This will be our "glue" to hold all the ingredients together so it can’t be too watery. Mix this with all your other cooked ingredients (add the steak now) in a big bowl and let it cool completely.

Preheat oven to 375. Unroll puff pastry and cut each sheet into half. Scoop filling onto half of each cut sheet - as much as it can hold, about 1 1/2 cups - and fold the other half over it, pinch the edges to seal. Try to leave as little edge as possible. Poke holes along the tops with a fork. Instead of lifting the pasties off the paper, simply trim the excess paper off and put the whole thing on a baking sheet. Brush with eggwash and bake for 30 minutes.

If you have extra time, put the baking sheet of pasties in the fridge before putting them into the oven. The colder the puff pastry, the puffier it gets in the oven.

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