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The Cornish Recipes Page
THE CORNISH PASTY: A FOREWORDPerhaps it would be as well to establish the etiquette of eating a pasty. A home-baked Cornish pasty is never, ever eaten with a knife and fork, although a plate is admissible; is never, ever eaten with vegetables (or, worse still, chips or brown sauce); and never, ever contains diced ingredients - always sliced. The Cornishman, it is said, can recognise the genuine article at 50 paces with his nose. The method of the Cornishwoman is more subtle: one glance at the crimping will establish authenticity. The crimping? Of course! To quote the Cornwall Federation of Women’s Institutes’ definitive recipe book: “Crimp by pinching the pastry with the left hand and fold over with right hand, forming a rope-like effect on the side of the pastry”. Such things matter. For this has been the way the Cornish pasty has been prepared for centuries - ever since it formed the staple diet for the impoverished tin miner more than two hundred years ago. The concept even then was both novel and practical: a complete meal, wrapped up in its own parcel of pastry. It was even aerodynamic: dropped from the pit top, it is said, the pasty would land intact and ready for eating at the foot. The recipe, it is true, has changed with the times. Many claim that first the pasty was half savoury, half sweet (usually apple), and the savoury was almost invariably fish. Moreover, it was customary to mark each miner’s initial on one corner of the pasty, in case some was left over and had to be identified later in the day! The modern pasty, still readily available at Cornish dinner tables, remains a complete meal - and a succulent one. |
THE CORNISH PASTY
INGREDIENTS
120g shortcrust pastry
1 onion,
1 turnip &
1 medium sized potato (all sliced around 1/2 an inch across)
100 - 120g meat (skirt or best chuck steak, not stewing beef), chopped
Salt and pepper
METHOD
Roll pastry into a round. The filling ingredients should be sliced in layers with the meat on top. Season with salt and pepper. Moisten the edges of the pastry with milk or water. Fold over and crimp the edges (crimp by pinching the pastry with the left hand and fold over with right hand, forming a rope-like effect on the side of the pastry). Place on a baking sheet and bake at 220C for 10 - 15 mins, reducing to 180C for a further 30 mins.
MIX IT UP A BIT
A personal favourite is to add around 40-50g of grated Cornish Yarg (a cheese exclusive to Cornwall, rolled in stinging nettles) into the filling. This is a more Cornish alternative to the popular "steak-and-stilton" pasty. Have an experiment with different fillings.
RAW FRY
INGREDIENTS
2 rashers bacon (per person)
1 onion, sliced
1-2 eggs (per person)
Potato sliced according to requirements
Water
METHOD
Fry rashers and eggs and keep warm. Add water and seasoning to the pan. Add onion and potato. Cover down and simmer till cooked, about 15 minutes. Serve with any green vegetable (this makes a most attractive, quick and easy meal).
CORNISH UNDER-ROAST (serves 3-4)
INGREDIENTS
450g steak, seasoned and rolled
Potatoes, medium sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
METHOD
Using oven-proof dish, lay meat on the bottom and onions on it. Then fill dish with potatoes and put a little meat fat or suet on top. Half fill with water. Put into pre-heated oven at 220C for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 190C for another 30 minutes. After 30 minutes correct seasoning and if liked, a roll of suet crust may be cooked along one edge of the dish. Serve with any green vegetables.
STAR GAZY PIE
So called because the heads of the fish are arranged in the centre of the pie gazing up to the sky. How sweet.
INGREDIENTS
Pastry
Fish (6 or more pilchards)
Salt and pepper
2 or 3 hard boiled eggs, if desired
METHOD
Prepare the pastry, put the pilchards in a pie-dish whole, and with their heads left on, season well with salt and pepper, slice and add the eggs, lay the pastry over and put the mouths of the pilchards through the pastry so that they can be seen.
LEEKY PIE
INGREDIENTS
Around 6 large leeks
A pack of fat bacon
Suet pastry
Beaten eggs
1 tbsp cream
Wash, clean and chop about half a dozen good-sized leeks, put in a pan and cover with boiling water, then drain in a colander. Put a layer in a pie dish, then some fat bacon, very finely sliced; then another layer of leek and bacon until dish is filled. Salt to taste, add sufficient milk to cover; boil for half an hour on top of stove, then cover with good suet pastry. Ten minutes before ready for the table, beat up two eggs and a spoonful of cream, remove the pastry and lay beaten eggs, etc over the cooked leeks, replace pastry and put back in the oven for 10 minutes.
SQUAB PIE
Taught by the Phoenicians when they mined tin in Cornwall.
Ingredients according to size of pie.
INGREDIENTS
Mutton chops, all fat removed
Apples, finely chopped
Bones boiled separately for stock
Onions, finely chopped
Currants
Brown Sugar (sprinkled thinly)
Favourite spices, salt and pepper
METHOD
Use a pie-dish - a brown earthenware one preferably. Put layers of mutton, about three inches square, over the bottom of the dish. Place layers of apple an inch thick on this, and sprinkle with sugar. Put layers of onions half-inch thick (only one layer of onions), salt. Put on a half-inch thick layer of currants and sprinkle with spice on layers of the apple. Then put another layer of mutton as with the first. Finish with a layer of apples. Pour on a small quantity of stock. Boil with dish on top for 1½ hours over a slow heat. Make light, thin pastry, put on and bake one hour in oven.
CORNISH CRAB SOUP
INGREDIENTS
1.2lt (2 pints) Chicken Stock
900ml (1½ pints) Full Cream Milk
225g Crab Meat, fresh or frozen
150ml (¼ pint) Double Cream
50g Butter
50g Plain Flour
2 tbsp Dry Sherry
¼ tsp Grated Nutmeg
Saffron (optional)
Salt and White Pepper
METHOD
Separate the white and dark crab meat.
Melt the butter a saucepan, stir in the flour and allow to cook for 2 minutes.
Add the milk, stirring well.
Add the chicken stock.
Add the dark crab meat, nutmeg and season to taste.
Simmer gently for 12-15 minutes.
Add the saffron (if used).
Add the white crab meat and the sherry.
Bring to a simmer, but do not boil. Cook for 5 minutes and adjust seasoning.
Serve with a swirl of cream.
HELSTON PUDDING
INGREDIENTS
75g Shredded Beef or Vegetarian Suet
50g Self Raising Flour
50g Fresh Breadcrumbs
50g Ground Rice
50g Soft Brown Sugar
50g Dried Apricots, chopped
50g Raisins or Sultanas
50g Currants
1 tsp Grated Nutmeg
¼ tsp of Bicarbonate of Soda
Milk
METHOD
Sieve the flour, add all of the ingredients into a large bowl and mix.
Add enough milk, stir well to produce a soft dropping consistency
Place into a buttered 1.1 litre (2pint) pudding basin
Cover with foil and tie on tightly
Place bowl in large saucepan with boiling water and cover
Steam for 2 hours
Adding more boiling water as needed
Serve with clotted cream
GINGER FAIRING
A fairing was a gift brought from a fair by children to parents or to parents to children. It could consist of fruit, biscuits or sweets. The original fairing was two ginger biscuits and two sugared almonds packaged by a mysterious Truro lady.
INGREDIENTS
120g flour
60g margarine
2 tbsp golden syrup
¼ tspn salt
60g granulated sugar
lemon rind, or peel, if desired
1 level teaspoon of each:
baking powder
ground ginger
mixed spice
bicarbonate of soda
ground cinnamon
METHOD
Mix together all the dry ingredients except the sugar. Rub in the fat, then add the sugar. Heat the syrup until it becomes runny, then add to the mixture. Roll into walnut-sized balls and place on a greased tin onto the top self of a fairly hot oven (200C). When biscuits begin to colour, remove to a lower shelf where they will begin to settle and crack.
HEAVY CAKE
Purely regional and known mostly from Truro southwards. Made in the fishing villages where seine fishing took place. When the seine net was being hauled in and the men shout “Heave” with every pull, the wives would know the men would soon be in for tea and would make this quick flat cake to be eaten warm or cold. Lazy devils, leaving everything until the last moment. However much things change, they stay the same. The diamond criss-cross pattern marked on the top with a knife depicts the fishing net.
INGREDIENTS
180g plain flour
¼ teaspoon salt
90g lard
100g currents
50g sugar
METHOD
Mix the flour, salt and fat roughly together. Add the other ingredients and mix with a little water until you have a stiff dough. Roll to approximately ½ inch thick. Criss-cross with knife. Bake at 190C for 25 - 30 mins. See, it is quick! Just like Gordon Ramsay. Bish-bosh-bash, job done.
CORNISH SPLITS
Cornish splits are traditionally served with a Cornish Cream Tea, when they are split and spread with jam and cream.
Splits eaten with cream and golden syrup or treacle are known as “thunder and lightning”.
INGREDIENTS
450g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
60g fat
12g yeast
½ pint warm milk
METHOD
Add the yeast and sugar to the warm milk. Sieve together the flour and the salt and rub in fat. Mix, knead well and allow to prove to double in size (rest in a warm place such as an airing cupboard for 20 minutes). Knead again and make into rolls or buns and place on floured baking parchment. Prove again in a warm place until doubled in size and bake at 200C for about 15 minutes.
CORNISH CLOTTED CREAM
Use new milk, and strain at once, as soon as milked, into shallow pans. Let stand for 24 hours in winter and 12 hours in summer. Then put the pan on the stove, or better still, into a steamer containing water, and let it slowly heat until the cream begins to show a raised ring around the edge. When sufficiently cooked, place in a cool dairy and leave for 12 or 24 hours. Great care must be taken in moving the pans so that the cream is not broken, both in putting on the fire and taking off. When required, skim off the cream layers into a glass dish for the table, taking care to have a good “crust” on the top. Clotted cream is best done over a stick fire.
So you'll all be having a go at that one then.
SAFFRON CAKE
The yellow saffron cake is as much a delicacy in Cornwall as the pasty. It is expensive, however, and a small quantity goes a long way... as can be seen below!
It is not known when saffron was first introduced into Cornwall. It is popularily believed that the Phoenicians brought it over with them when they came to trade for tin.
INGREDIENTS
900g plain flour
30g peel if liked
90g sugar
30g yeast
¾ pt warm water
1 teaspoon salt
350g fat
450g currants or other fruit
Generous pinch of saffron
You can always halve the quantities... but does anyone know what half a pinch of saffron looks like?
METHOD
"Sponge" the yeast with 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 cup of the weighed flour in the warm water (mix those ingredients together and let it sit until bubbly). Stir and cover. Rub fat in flour. Add salt, sugar and fruit. Add the sponged yeast and saffron, which should have been well dried, rolled between greaseproof paper and steeped in a little hot water. Knead well. Prove. Knead again and put in tins to prove before baking at 190C for 30 mins, then lower to 160C.
JUNKET
Set a quart of new milk, with ½ pint cream in it, in a glass dish, with a spoonful of rennet; pour over it ½ pint white wine, 25g of sugar and half a nutmeg, grated.
Cover with plain whisked cream and garnish with apricot jam or jelly.
CURRANY ‘OBBIN
Make a stiffish paste with flour and lard and a pinch of salt. Wet it up with milk if you got it, and water if you ab’n got it. Roll it out nice and thin and sprinkle it all over with currans, nice and thick. Then roll it up careful like you would starch your clothes, squeeze home the ends and brush it over with the white of an egg if you want it to shine. Then clap’en in the ob’n. The children do dearly like it, and as they say currans be full of new-fangled “vitamines” the Doctors be always ordering, they ought to be good for ‘em.
If you get tired of currans you can make a “Figgy” wan for a change... and "figs" is just Cornish for "raisins".
Do you have a Cornish recipe that you'd like to share?
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