Pasties

Ok folks, UP born and bred … Cornish pasties have no carrots; Finnish pasties however do have carrots. Depending on your heritage or where you learned to eat & make them, you use either, or, or both! Depends on my mood. I honestly don’t think the cut of beef matters, what’s important is if they are made well and taste good. Just don’t forget the salt & pepper!!

Pasties remind me of summers in the U.P., camping, fishing and AM radio playing the top ten. The original U.P. recipe depends on which place you went to get them. Some are chopped beef, some are ground beef… But the Cornish recipe uses diced beef, potato, rutabaga (swede in the U.K.), and onion. Hahaha, there’s even a Cornish Pasty Association that insisted that any deviation from the original recipe is akin to a cardinal sin. Back in the day, the Cornish miners were lucky if there were a few pieces of meat in it and it was leftovers from last night’s dinner. Meat was for the upper class and expensive.

Real UP Pasties are NOT made with ground beef. The original recipes call for chopped steak, used by the original miners. They were wrapped in layers of newspaper to keep warm ,so the miners could have warm food to sustain them.

Carrots are not traditional, but they do add some color and taste. Why not peas, or celery? The beauty of a pasty is you can do whatever you want. We use hamburger, it provides the moisture for a sealed pastry shell. We also make an actual pie, easy way to feed the family. After all there is no one heading down into the mines in Michigan these days!

Just don’t add carrots. Otherwise great recipe and very classic. You can substitute with other meats too like pork, ground beef, chicken for a different flavor. This is a great base recipe to play with some different spices too.

Yum! Use to get this at little gas station in the U.P. On cold winter days These brought back those wonderful times hiking and snowmobiling. Made enough to freeze and enjoy this winter

My family LOVES this recipe. I loved away from the yoop a few years ago and I’ve been missing my favorite pastie shops. Recently found out my favorite place shuttered it doors December of 2022 so I dug up this recipe and modified it slightly to mimic my favorite order from my favorite pastie shop. It’s become a weekly request in our house and has become part of my normal rotation. Even guests have asked for it. I do everything exactly as listed above for the classic pastie. But I found being made with lard can give a crispier crust if you want to experiment (but it’s not necessary because this is great to begin with). You have to have the potatoes and carrots for the yooper pastie but if you want to add a little extra (my mimic of my favorite shop in Marquette) I’ll toss in diced broccoli, cauliflower (if I have it), and a stick of cream cheese to the stuffing. Then eat with ketchup. A small tip for making pasties is to always chop everything very small and of similar size so it cooks well and pretty evenly amongst ingredients. I got this tip off another recipe by an elderly woman who made it for her church and it really made sure every bite is a total delight.

This was a wonderful recipe. I had to substitute rutabaga for turnip due to market season. In the future I will make 8 servings instead of 6. Pasty’s are just a little too big for hub and I to share one- at one sitting.

This recipe turned out pretty good for me. I made this with what I had on hand (lard instead of shortening, pulled venison instead of fresh meat) but am sure that if followed as directed, one will create fantastic pasties!

I made these for a group of Michiganders on euchre night and they loved them. “You nailed it!” and “Now, that’s a true pasty!” Ketchup was requested.

Love it! It freezes and reheats so beautifully.

Thank you, thank you. I’m a distant yooper, (grandma moved to Ohio when she was about 10) and this helped me create my own home-made pasty that I was only able to eat maybe once every couple years. I use ground beef, potato, rutabaga, onion, carrot and salt/pepper. The dough & filligng ratio seems off – so I’ll have to play with it until I figure it out. The recipe for the dough is perfect as far as what I was looking for.

The crust was amazing and easy to work with. I am from the upper Peninsula of Michigan and it is taboo not to use rutabaga. I had none so I use carrot and it actually turned out really well. This will be my new go to recipe for pasties

The crust was amazing and easy to work with. I am from the upper Peninsula of Michigan and it is taboo not to use rutabaga. I had none so I use carrot and it actually turned out really well. This will be my new go to recipe for pasties

I see there is a debate here. My Dad is 78 years-old, born and raised in the U.P. and he claims they are supposed to be made with ground meat. I see others say that’s a mortal sin. Who knows. All I know is that when we visit my parents in the summer, we stock up because we love them. The places we go around St Ignace do not use ground meat. Here it is March and we are missing pasties, so I was delighted to find this recipe. I never thought I could make my own and have the same experience. I was wrong. I can’t believe how good these turned out. I did use butter flavored Crisco because that’s all I had and the crust was AMAZING!!! I could’ve ate that on my own and been happy. It didn’t take me quite the full 1 cup of ice water. I have TERRIBLE luck with crusts and this was so easy to work with!!! I did chill it for about an hour. I separated into 6 portions and rolled separately, but I won’t do that again. It was too difficult to shape into circles. I will roll all the dough and find a bowl about 8 inches as a guide next time to get the shape. I did very thinly slice sirloin and sprinkled with seasoned meat tenderizer and a little Worcestershire along with about a tablespoon of ketchup as suggested by someone else and let it marinate at room temp for an hour while the dough chilled. I used one medium onion, about a half cup of small diced rutabaga which I’ve never worked with before, and one good sized russet potato. AMAZING!!!!

This is a great recipe, but find another crust recipe because this one has no taste.

Born and raised in Michigan and had never tried making a pasty until I found this recipe. I was concerned about dryness so I put my own twist on this recipe. First of all, the dough recipe is awesome! No changes there. The only things I did differently were: I tossed my meat/veggie mixture with garlic infused olive oil and used seasoned salt and regular salt. I brushed the filled pasties with an egg wash instead of milk. I tried mine with gravy, ketchup, and mustard separately and I preferred mustard (I’m a ketchup lover) or plain. Surprisingly moist! Next time, I’m going to try burger instead of steak. Thanks for the recipe! Definitely making these again! Trying breakfast ingredients next time with that awesome “pie” dough 🙂

I made the filling almost as written, I added Worcestershire sauce and red pepper flakes, based on other reviews. I used pre made pie crust, rolling it out thin. Overall I found it a little bland, but I am used to eating spicy foods. I would definitely make again, they were darn good dipped in baby rays secret sauce. (It has a horseradish tang that complimented these very well). Next Time I will add more spice, but it is a very versatile recipe, that is customizable enough for every one. Thank you for sharing.

My Dad was born and raised in the Houghton, MI area (he was part Finn) and used to make pasties for the family once or twice a year. He passed many years ago, so I have been thinking of taking over the family tradition. This recipe came out exactly as I remember Dad’s pasties! Follow this exactly as written (no carrots! Use rutabaga!) and you will have one of the best pasties around!

LOL, I’d have to agree with Michelle, back in 02/25/2006…it is a mortal sin to add carrots to the pastie. My MIL used to make, Welsh, Cornwall family…and no carrots! And yes, they used Swede, but we have rutabaga access here for ease. Also when I was a kid, my mom would even have me bike up to a Welsh bakery near us in Detroit, to get the same style that my MIL taught me to do. And in honor of her this week…since she’d been gone for 4 years now…and it’s also her birthday week…I’ve made my own off her recipe. Otherwise, this one is very close(leave out the carrots people!). She’d make, wrap in foil, and give hubby and myself them to take for our lunch while out skiing(Michigan). I will say that I used a King Arthur Flour recipe today for the dough..and it was very easy to work with for all the folding and crimping. 🙂

just like the yuppers its great