Northern Irish Pasties

Another peculiarly Northern Irish food is the Pastie.  For the rest of the British Isles, a pastie is some sort of pastry with a savoury filling, but for the Ulsterman, it's normally battered deliciousness, available at every chippy (mmm, pastie and chips 🤤).  Even better when put in a bread roll to make a Pastie Bap!

Ingredients

500g Northern Irish Vegetable Roll
1kg Potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks (I often use frozen mash instead as a time saver)
100g Butter
2x 130g Batter Mix (yes, another cheat - but it's only about 25p a pack and saves time!)
Salt
Oil for frying

Method

1. Cover the potatoes in lightly salted water and bring to the boil.  Boil for 15-20 minutes until soft.

2. Drain the potatoes and mash with the butter until smooth.  Try to use as little butter as possible, as you want your potatoes to be fairly dry.  I'm really bad at doing mash without lumps (I have no patience!), so I use a potato ricer to get it smooth.

3. Put the vegetable roll and mash into a bowl and knead together with your hands until the mixture is an even paste.

4. Shape the mixture into balls that fit in the palm of your hand and squash slightly to make patties.  You should get around 20 from this mixture.  Place these in the fridge to chill for around 30 minutes.

5. Heat your oil in a pan (I use a wok) - if you have a deep fryer use that.  Make sure the oil is hot.

6. It's not hot enough. Wait until it's hot!  In the meantime, make up the batter mix from the pack instructions, but use slightly less water than it says to get a thick batter.

7. Coat the patties in the batter (it's easiest if you keep one hand wet and one hand dry).  Now the tricky bit... Hold the battered patty half in, half out of the oil for a few seconds, before dropping in.  This gives the batter time to set slightly before you let go, which will help it not to stick to the bottom of the pan (or basket).

8. Fry in batches of around 4 patties at a time (to prevent the oil cooling down) for around 5-7 minutes until the batter is a golden and crispy.  Turn them over in the pan halfway through cooking, to get an even colour. (Don't turn them too much, as they have a tendency to fall to bits if you do.)  Let them cool a little before eating.

It's unlikely you will eat 20 pasties in one go!  You can keep them in the fridge for a few days, and reheat in the oven at 230℃ for around 10 minutes.  They can also be frozen - double the cooking time if oven baking straight from frozen.  Oven cooking is great, as it makes the batter go extra crispy!

Alternative options

If you're not keen on deep fat frying and batter and all the mess and potential burning that goes with that, skip steps 5-8.  You can just fry the patties as they are for a few minutes on each side, and they still taste great.  Or, coat the patties in plain flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs, and bake in the oven at 230℃ for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through.