Tamarind spiced vegetable pasty

I love it when a thrown together meal works out really well. I cooked this because I had some pastry and vegetables that needed using up but as it’s quick and tasty I’ll definitely be making it again.

I made three pasties with this recipe, although there was enough veg to fill four.

I bought a jar of tamarind paste at my local supermarket a couple of weeks back and have been looking forward to trying it out ever since. I love it’s sour taste which I think pairs perfectly with chunks of potato or vegetables that can absorb its flavour.

I forgot to bring the pastry up to room temperature before I unrollled the pack. It doesn’t affect the taste at all but it made it trickier to unroll so my uncooked pasties weren’t the prettiest ones I’ve ever seen – excuse the photo’s!

If you want to make these up in advance then cover the uncooked pasties in tin foil and pop them in the fridge until you want them.

Feel free to adapt this recipe to use whatever vegetables you have lying around. You could easily turn this into a meat version too of you prefer (I think two chicken breasts would be plenty, depending on how much veg you were adding). These would also taste great with shortcrust pastry if that’s what you have available. I used low fat puff pastry and it wasn’t really that puffy anyway!

Ingredients

Makes three pasties

• 1 x 375g pack ready rolled puff or shortcrust pastry
• 1/2 a butternut squash
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 2 handfuls fresh spinach
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp oil for frying
• 1 tbsp tamarind paste
• 3-4 tbsp water
• milk for sealing the pastry

Method

1. Take the pastry out of the fridge about 15 minutes before you want to unroll it.
2. Peel and chop the squash, onion and red pepper. Chop or crush the garlic and wash the spinach and chop off any thick stems.
3. Add the oil, mustard seeds and turmeric to a saucepan or large frying pan and heat on a medium heat until the seeds start to pop (this will take a minute or so).
4. Add the vegetables, tamarind paste and enough water to loosen the veg and help you scrape any sediment from the bottom of the pan. Stir well to coat.
5. Heat on a low-medium heat for about 10 minutes until the squash is softened, then stir through the spinach and heat for another minute or two before removing from the heat (the vegetables need to cook completely before you seal them in the pastry if you’re not cooking them straight away).
6. Heat your oven to 180°C then unroll your pastry onto a baking tray, keeping it on the greaseproof paper that it’s packaged in. Using a blunt knife cut the pastry into thirds.
7. Spoon 1 cooking/dishing up spoon of vegetables onto one half of each of the pastry sheets, leaving enough space around the edges to allow you to seal the pasty. Don’t add too much, or the pastry will split during cooking.
   

   

   
8. Pour the milk into a cup or ramekin. Dip your finger in and run some milk around the edges of the pastry before folding the empty side on top of the vegetables. Gently press the edges together, then lightly coat the top of the pasties with milk.
9. Cook for 20 minutes until the top has turned golden and serve with salad, mashed potatoes and veg or enjoy it on its own.