Butternut squash, ham and feta pasties

Sorry for the long absence.  This recipe isn't particularly anti-cholesterol, except for the huge quantities of vegetables and therefore soluble vegetable fibre involved, but it does include a very large amount of sage, and I'm sure that that's good for something.

The resultant pasties are, however, very very tasty.  Very tasty, and the key to that is in the industrial quantities of sage that you need to use: don't stint on the sage!  Actually, that's pretty much my guideline for life.  

OK.  So, what you need are the following things (I'm using my usual philosophy of going for one of everything, but if you do that you might find that you have a lot of the filling left over, in which case, go for two of the packets of pastry):

Ingredients

• One onion
• One packet of feta - doesn't have to be particularly greek.  'Salad cheese' from Sainsbury or Tesco is fine.
• About 250 g of ham.  Actually, sorry, this isn't a 'one'. The cheapest (and best) way I've found to do this is to get a packet of ham trimmings or ask for ham trimmings at a deli counter.  You're going to cut it up anyway, so it doesn't matter if it's not pretty when you buy it.  If you get sliced ham from a deli, ask for it to be cut quite thickly
• One packet of fresh sage leaves.  Alternatively, go to the bush in your herb garden and cut off around 20 or so (if in doubt, cut more) of the medium sized leaves
• One butternut squash, medium
• One packet of shortcrust pastry (or two)
• Some olive oil
• An egg
• Some sea salt
• Pepper

You do probably also need some specialised equipment ie a rolling pin and a pastry brush and a potato peeler.

Method

1. Roasting the squash with the sage

Switch the oven to around 200 C and leave it to heat up while you get the squash ready.

Prepare your butternut squash.  You do this by peeling it first (hence the potato peeler). 


Using a fairly hefty knife, slice the peeled squash in half, vertically and use a spoon and a knife to scoop out all of the seeds and fibrous bits (you do need to get rid of the seeds, but don't worry too much if a couple of the fibres are left).  This can get quite messy.

Then dice the flesh into 1 - 2 cm cubes, or as near as you can.  

Put the cubes into a large bowl, large enough so you can stir the cubes with a spoon without spilling the cubes out.

Take your packet of fresh sage leaves and shred the leaves.  You do this by putting four or five leaves on top of each other, rolling them into a sort of tiny swiss roll, and then cutting strips off the roll about 1 mm thick. 

Put all of the shreds into the bowl with the butternut squash cubes.

Add a glug of olive oil to the bowl and a hefty pinch of sea salt and a substantial grind of pepper, and stir everything up so that all of the cubes are coated in oil and shredded sage. 

Tip all of this into a roasting tin and stick in the oven for 20 - 30 mins, until the cubes are soft (they'll mash if you press them but still have a little resistance) and perhaps charred at the edges (the charring adds sweetness). 

Take the roasting dish out of the oven and let the butternut squash cool.  You can do this the day before if you want.

This is what the squash will look like when cooled and put back into the bowl:

2. Making the filling

Chop the onion up finely.  Tip that into another bowl.

Chop the ham up so that it's in 0.5 - 1 cm cubes.  Add that to the bowl with the onion. 

Take the packet of feta and chop that up into 0.5 - 1 cm cubes (it will crumble - don't worry about that) and add those to the bowl with the ham and the onion. 

You don't have to chop these things in this order, incidentally; you just need all the chopped stuff in a bowl, to which you will add the now-cold butternut squash, and stir. 

Stir quite roughly so that some of the squash disintegrates, to give some sort of cohesion to the mixture.

3. Making the pasties

Dust your work surface with flour and unroll your pastry onto it.  I then use a rolling pin to roll out and  flatten the pastry slightly. 

Get a sideplate and place it upside down on the pastry and cut around it.  You need to do this as many times as you can from your one roll of pastry - I usually get about three out of one roll, and I then roll out the left over pastry again to get a fourth.

Break the egg into a small bowl or cup, add a splash of water (one tablespoon or less) and beat with a fork to make an eggy mixture.  You are going to use this to seal your pasties and also to brush onto the top to make them brown.

Take one of your circles of pastry.  Brush eggy mixture over the top side, and then add two to three tablespoons of filling mixture to one side of the circle.  Like this:

You might need to add some more eggy mixture to the edges before you fold it over.  The eggy mixture helps stop the pastry going soggy a little bit, and acts like a glue when you fold the pastry over.

 Fold the pastry over so you have a bulgy semi circle, and crimp the edges so that they are stuck together.

You can find all sorts of videos to show you how to crimp the edges.  I just use a fork and press it down quite hard.  You'll find your pastry stretching a little over the filling - that's OK.  Just try not to break it.

Put your uncooked pasty onto a non-stick baking tray (or add some baking parchment if your baking tray is crusty).  Brush some egg wash over the top,  and use a knife to cut one or two slits into the top of the pasty to let the steam escape while the filling cooks.  Repeat with the rest of your pasty circles.

Put the baking tray into the oven at 200 C / Gas mark 6 for about ten minutes, and then turn the oven down to 180 / Gas mark 4, and leave for another 25 - 30 minutes.  Make sure you check, though, and take the pasties out if it looks like the pastry is burning.

Take the pasties out and let them cool on a wire tray before eating.  They should look like this:

It is important to let them cool before eating because the filling gets very hot.  They're actually best quite cold. 

Here's another picture of a different batch:

I'm not very good at applying egg wash.

The butternut squash prepared in this way can also be used to make a brilliant risotto.  I'll blog that soon.