[ADVICE] [DISCUSSION] Wylder's Redwall Cooking

[Wylder Treejumper]

Welcome, welcome, everyone! Welcome to the topic where I experiment with cooking like a Redwaller! As I was the one who suggested we have this board, I thought it fitting that I should attempt to make it an active part of the Redwall Forum community. (Also as part of my work I will be transferring recipes from The Redwall Kitchen to this forum to enable discussion and experimentation, as the site is now defunct)

Here, I will document my forays into the arts of cookery. As part of my quest, I will attempt to make Redwall cooking accessible and convenient as much as possible, to aid integration into your everyday routine. The recipes I post here may take some fine-tuning, but bear with me and we'll see where it goes.

If you have a question about anything related to Redwall cooking, ask away! I'll do my level best to answer. Also, if you are looking for a specific recipe and are unable to find one, I would be happy to advise you- or, if worst comes to worst, make one for you myself.

Miscellaneous comments and questions are encouraged.

Happy cooking!

[Wylder Treejumper]

Potato n' Onion Pasties

Filling:
-4 medium potatoes
-3/4 large onion
-2 cloves garlic
-1 Tb salt
-dash pepper

Gravy:
-1/2 C butter
-4 C milk
-1/3 C flour
-1 Tb salt
-2 tsp onion powder
-2 tsp garlic powder
-dash pepper

Dough:
-4 C white flour
-2 Tb sugar
-3 Tb baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-1 C shortening
-2 eggs
-1 1/3 C milk


Instructions:
Peel and chop potatoes, onions, and garlic. Put in pan and turn to medium heat. Add salt and pepper. Add water just to cover bottom of pan and let simmer, stirring occasionally and adding more water if necessary. When filling reaches desired consistency, remove from heat.
While filling is simmering, melt butter in a saucepan on low heat. Add flour, stirring constantly. After mixture attains a thick but even consistency, slowly add remaining milk and turn up to medium, continuing to stir. Add salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Adjust to taste. When gravy is desired flavor and consistency, remove from heat and let cool.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients for dough. Add shortening and mix until crumbly, then add eggs and milk. After dough is well mixed, turn onto floured surface. Lightly flour dough and roll out until it is between 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Using a stencil of your choice, such as a plate of the desired size, cut out rounds of dough and place on a cookie sheet covered in wax or parchment paper. Remove remaining dough, recombine scraps, and roll out again. Repeat until as much dough is used as possible, making sure to re-flour rolling surface and dough each time.
Take filling and add large spoonfuls to each pasty, filling only part of one half. Take gravy and spread over top of filling. Fold pasties in half, creating a pocket shaped like a "D". Pinch edges together tightly.
Insert sheets into oven. Cook for 15 minutes or until edges turn golden-brown.

Yield: 7 7" diameter pasties
Prep time: 1 hr
Cook time:15 min

[Wylder Treejumper]

Potato n' Onion Pasties Commentary

This is probably one of my favorite things to make, and the recipe I am definitely most proud of. Pasties are the ubiquitous Redwall food, but there appears to be a lack of recipes out there. In order to create this recipe, I had to look up the original pasties, made for Cornish miners in Britain. I then had to make the recipe mostly from scratch.

For the dough, I first tried using pie crust, but I found that to be to crunchy and flavorless. Instead, I used my family recipe for biscuits. The filling was fairly simple to do, just simmering vegetables. The gravy is roux (pronounced "roo") based, which means it is fairly difficult to make without burning, but I chose it because gravies made with roux are very thick and creamy, like the sausage gravy you dip your biscuits in.

The first thing I will say about this recipe is that it is very complex. It takes a long time to do by yourself, especially if it is your first time making it... Prepare to invest 1.5 hours if it's your first time making it, 2 hours if you have never worked with rolled dough before. This recipe goes so much faster if you have three cooks: one each for the dough, filling, and gravy. Thankfully, pasties are wonderfully tasty and useful. one 7" pastie is the equivalent of a full meal for one person. Pasties keep better than sandwiches, as they don't smash so easily. They taste good warm or cold. They keep well. In fact, if you don't make the gravy, or substitute a non-milk based one, the pasties can keep for several days without refrigeration, as long as you keep them in a cool, dry place.

The filling works best if you chop the onions small, and the potatoes into pieces between 1 cm and 1/2 inch cubed. Make sure you add just enough water to cover the bottom, and don't let it all evaporate. Use a lid if you have one. Make sure you stir it so that it doesn't scorch the pan, and add more water when needed. If you have an electric skillet, set it to between 300-325 degrees and use that to cook it.

The gravy is probably the most difficult to do without messing up... My early attempts at using roux usually led to burning or gravy full of flour chunks. If you have never tried roux before, I recommend you skip this. Try adding milk and butter to the filling instead. If you are determined, make sure you stir like crazy, add flour slowly, and don't turn the heat up too early.

The dough is easier, as long as you follow the instructions. Once you have finished mixing it, knead it in your hands for a little bit to try to work out some of the air. Have a smooth surface ready with a light coat of flour on it. when you put the dough on the rolling surface, press it down until it is flatter and then sprinkle flour onto it. Rubbing the flour into the surface of the dough will make it much less sticky. When you cut out the pasties, be mindful that making pasties very small will cause you to use a lot of dough and not much filling, while large pasties will use a lot of filling and not cook thoroughly. I use one of our smaller plates and cut around the profile to make nice pasty rounds.

When filling the pasties, be mindful to fill only one side, so you can flip the top over easily. Don't overstuff them, or you will have major problems trying to seal them.

EDIT: Because this recipe takes so long to make, I usually make the filling and gravy the day before, then I just make the dough and stuff the pasties. You might consider doing something similar.

[Cornflower MM]

Oooh, cool idea Wylder! I have a few questions, though:

With your gravy, do you think it would be possible to switch it to my family's recipe? (I'm sure your gravy is very good, Pockets, but neither my mom or I can have a lot of dairy product at one time, and, well, all that milk. . . . We'd be up all night coughing.)

Could I possibly leave out the salt and pepper in the filling? My dad's picky about his salt and pepper, so we usually leave it out of recipes and let him and my mother put on as much as they wish on the top.

. . . . . That second question sounds really stupid. Sorry. But I thought I'd ask - Better safe than sorry.

[Wylder Treejumper]

Well, it depends... I don't know the gravy recipe, but it needs to be a thick gravy, or it will be very difficult to seal the pasties. It also should taste good with the filling- sweet gravies probably wouldn't be the best idea.

As for salt and pepper, you could leave them out, but it will be difficult to season after baking. I'd recommend letting your father season the filling to his taste first, then stuffing the pasties and baking them.

Regardless, please experiment and post anything you find that improves the recipe. I'm always open to alterations.

[Cornflower MM]

Okay, thanks! I might try this one night when it's my turn to make dinner.

[The Skarzs]

I've made similar things from scratch both in ingredients and in ideas, and the diversities in fillings is extensive. I've used creamier fillings and thicker fillings and they both seem to do fine, though using a very dry filling makes them crumbly and a bit messy because of it. Make it too wet and the dough gets soggy. (This can be prevented by coating the inside with egg white. The egg also acts as glue to help keep the edges together.)

[Skyblade]

I'm not the cooking type, but I think it's great that you've posted so many recipes here! Kudos!

[Wylder Treejumper]

Well, I'm back open for business! I'll hopefully be making posts about my activities soon. And, of course, I'm always open for questions, recipes requests, or anything else related to Redwall cookery.

[Captain Tammo]

Any updates, Wylder? 

[NovaNocturne]

Wylder, would you be opposed to me trying to make these pasties on a video? Credit will be given to you for the recipe.

[Wylder Treejumper]

I would be honored. If you have any questions, just let me know!



Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a kitchen, so my experimentation has been necessarily cut off. It is difficult to create recipes without ingredients or equipment. I will hopefully return and continue sometime, but not in the immediate future. I will still, however, gladly answer any questions you have concerning cooking, though!

[Captain Tammo]

Wylder, would you be opposed to me trying to make these pasties on a video? Credit will be given to you for the recipe.

OOOH that could be really cool!