This was our first ever attempt at rough puff pastry. It’s actually pretty simple but you do need to start in the morning if you want to eat these for lunch. We had too much filling and we made some extras with shop-bought puff pastry – these were good too! It’s a good idea to make the filling first as it needs to cool completely before stuffing the pasties.
Courgette, chard & feta pasties – serves 4
FOR THE FILLING:
- a bunch of chard
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 onions, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- 6-8 small courgettes, sliced into 1cm rounds
- finely grated zest of 1 lemon
- a large handful of basil leaves, chopped
- a handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
- 150-200g feta cheese (or soft goat’s cheese)
FOR THE ROUGH PUFF PASTRY:
- 250g unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
- 500g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- a good pinch of salt
- 200ml iced water
TO FINISH:
- 1 beaten egg
- 1 tsp black onion seeds
Wash the chard, then remove the stalks from the leaves. Roughly chop the leaves and cut the stalks into 1cm pieces. Bring a pan of salty water to the boil and add the stalk pieces. Cook for a minute or two, then add the leaves and cook for another couple of minutes. Drain and allow to cool, then squeeze out any excess liquid from the leaves with your hands. Set aside.
Heat half the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onions, garlic and some seasoning. Cook for 5-6 minutes, watching that they don’t catch. Add the courgettes and cook for another 15-20 minutes. You want the courgettes to be nice and soft but not disintegrated. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the chard, lemon zest, basil, parsley and more seasoning. Allow to cool completely, then crumble in the feta and gently mix together. Keep the filling cool while you make the pastry.
TO MAKE ROUGH PUFF PASTRY:
Combine the butter cubes, flour and salt in a large bowl. Add just enough cold water to bring everything together into a dough. It will have big pieces of butter in it and that’s ok.
Flour your surface well, then roll the dough in one direction, away from you, to a 1cm thick rectangle. Fold the two short ends into the middle so they overlap. Give the pastry a quarter turn, repeat the rolling, folding and turning process another three times (four in total). Wrap the pastry in baking paper and put into the fridge for 30 minutes. Remove the pastry and repeat the rolling, folding and turning process another 4 times. Return to the fridge again for another 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/400F/Gas 6.
Remove the chilled pastry from the fridge and roll out to 4-5mm thick. Use a 18-20cm plate or cutter to cut out 4 rounds. Put a quarter of the filling (or whatever fits) in the lower half of each round, leaving a 2cm border around the edge. Brush the border below the filling with beaten egg and fold the pastry over to encase the filling. Crimp the edges with a fork to seal, then brush with the egg and sprinkle over the onion seeds and a little bit of flaky sea salt.
Put the pasties on to a baking sheet lined with baking paper and bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden. Eat just warm or at room temperature.
(Original recipe from Outside by Gill Meller, Hardie Grant: Quadrille, 2022.)
Jono & Jules do food & wine 