Salmon in Wrapper

Couple days ago, I had an intense meatpie /savory pastry craving.  What did I do? I acted on it! Got home whipped up these pretty things with canned salmon and other things in the pantry. The pictures don’t look as good as they tasted!!!! I was in foodie heaven, as I enjoyed these beauties with “Home Alone” (yes the old Christmas movie) showing on TV. 

For the longest time I had issues achieving the right pie crust (I mean Nigerian meat-pie). I LOVED the flaky style – (something in between the American puff pastry and commercial Jamaican beef patty pastry), not the soft (almost soggy) one, or the hard teeth threatening one (you find at some Nigerian parties), or the confused sort (a cross between agege bread and buns).  Thankfully my bakery owner/baking instructor mum saw me out of this conundrum. You see she had always told me that:

1.       “Excessive handling destroys the texture of crust”

2.       “Too much water made crust hard”

3.       “Heat kills the essence of crust”

4.       “Too little butter will get you nowhere”

Unfortunately that meant NOTHING to me until recently. Because I love to share, I’ll let you in on this secret.

1.       You must use 1part butter to 2 parts flour.

2.       DO NOT over mix

3.       You MUST have lumps (pebble sized) of butter before adding water - this helps achieve the “flakiness”

4.       Add just enough ICE WATER to bind the pastry

5.       You MUST chill the pastry before rolling. Infact overnight chilling yields amazing results.

So how did I make these little beauties?

Ingredients:

For crust

1.       2 cups flour – aerated by using a spoon to scoop into the cup

2.       2 sticks cold butter (I cup) – chopped in small pieces

3.       Pimento (for flavor and color)

4.       Salt

5.       Small ice water to bind

6.       Eggs  - for egg wash

For Filling

1.       Canned salmon – well drained (watery filling will make a mess of this snack)

2.       Chopped red onions

3.       Ms. Dash

4.       Salt

5.       Fire roasted red and yellow peppers

6.       Black pepper

7.       Some oil

Method:

1.       Heat up oil and fry onions

2.       Add all other filling ingredients

3.       Cook for about 5 minutes

4.       Leave to cool

5.       Mix butter, pimento, salt, and flour lightly

6.       Make a well in the center

7.       Add water in small portions until pastry binds

8.       Wrap pastry in plastic and leave in the fridge for 30 mins or freezer for 10 mins

9.       Roll out pastry – using flour to minimize stickiness

10.   Cut pastry to desired shape

11.   Fill with filling

12.   Seal

13.   Brush egg wash over the pastry for color

14.   Bake in a preheated oven until crust is golden (in my case almost coral because of the pimento)

15.   Leave to cool

16.   Enjoy!!