Pasties

Some foods in life were made to go together. Peanut Butter and Jelly. Pizza and beer. Chocolate and anything. One of the combinations I loved most as a kid was meat and pastry. I'm not talking about the nasty steak and kidney pies the Brits made famous. I'm talking about individual, hand held, meat pies called Pasties. Someone told me recently that the Pastie first originated back when heavy metal miners would take them into the mines for lunch. Because they couldn't wash the metal particulates from their hands, they would hold on to the thick folds of the crust and eat the center meaty part from around them, and then discard the crust. I don't know if this is true, but it makes for a good story. It's also an awful waste of crust, especially given Pastie crust and Mother Goose's gravy is a new favorite combo.

Inspiration: Monday Night Football Dinner
Time: 2 hours
Difficulty: medium
Special equipment: Pasty Brush, Cookie Sheets
Servings: 12 Pasties

Ingredients:
1 lb very lean ground beef
2 tbs olive oil
3-4 shakes Worcestershire Sauce
3 carrots, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
4-6 cloves garlic
Hand full of fresh parsley, Chopped
Salt and Pepper
A good amount of plain yogurt (honest to god, this is straight from my grandmother's recipe...I usually use about 1/4-1/3 of a cup)
6 rounds frozen pie dough (or you can make your own using a standard savory pie dough recipe)
1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 tsp of water

1. On medium heat, brown ground beef in 1 tbs olive oil. Remove from pan, Drain and reserve juices.
2. Over medium heat, saute carrots, onions, celery and garlic over medium heat. When carrots are nearly tender and onions are translucent, add parsley to briefly cook, then remove from heat.
3. In a large bowl, combine meat, and veggies and salt and pepper to taste. At this point you can refrigerate overnight to meld flavors.
4. When ready to assemble pasties, separate fat from reserved juices and discard fat. Mix the remaining meat juice and the yogurt with the meat to finish the filling. It will be wet, but that's okay.
5. Cut your all pie crusts into quarters. Spoon the filling equally among 12 quarter pieces of dough. Then, one at a time, dampen the edges of the pie dough around the filling with a little bit of water on your fingers, and pat down one of the remaining, unfilled pie dough quaters so that the edges meet around the filling. Use a fork to press the edges all the way around the pastie to seal the moisture. Transfer completed pastie onto a baking sheet, and repeat this step with the remaining pasties.
6. When all the pasties are on the baking sheet(s), brush the egg yolk over the pasties top . This will help the pastie to brown nicely.
7. In a preheated 350 degree oven, bake pasties for 45 minutes to an hour until golden brown.
8. Serve with Mother Goose's gravey (You'll have to ask her for it...I don't make gravey quite like she does)