While I am calling these venison pasties because that's what I like to fill them with, pretty much anything goes in terms of the filling, as I describe above. That said, what follows is pretty close to the official recipe for a Cornish pasty. No matter what the filling, keep the dough the same.
120gramsduck fat, lard or rendered beef fat,about 4 ounces
120gramsbutter,about 4 ounces
175milliliterscold water, about 6 fluid ounces
FILLING
1poundvenison, diced
1/2poundYukon Gold potatoes,peeled and diced
1/2poundrutabagas,peeled and diced
1large yellow onion, chopped
Salt and black pepper to taste
GLAZE
2eggs, lightly beaten
2tablespoonsmilk or water
Instructions
DOUGH
Mix the flour and salt together. Add the two fats, and work them into the flour with your fingers until everything looks like a coarse meal. Pour in the cold water and knead for several minutes, until you get a smooth dough.
Squeeze off 10 equally sized balls of dough. Set them in a plastic bag and put that in the fridge for 3 hours.
FILLING
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. That's it. In this case, you put raw ingredients into the pasty and they cook as the dough cooks. I either do this, or add a premade filling as I mention in the headnotes above. Whatever you use, use the recipe above to give you a sense of how much filling you will need.
MAKE THE PASTIES
You can do one of two things. You can roll each ball out into a disk, which is traditional, or, do what I do and use a tortilla press to flatten out the balls into perfect disks every time. It's a great hack!
Set filling in each disk and close them into half-moons. Press the edges, and try to get any big air pockets out. Crimp the edges as shown in the video in the text above. Set each pasty on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 360°F.
Whisk together the glaze and paint each pasty with it. Bake your pasties for 50 minutes or so, taking a look about 40 minutes in -- if they are not browning well, up the temperature to 400°F for this final bit. Remove and let cool on a rack for at least 5 minutes before eating.
Notes
NOTE: I use metric measurements in the dough because you need to be more precise there.