Pasties--Michigan's Upper Peninsula Style

By Kathryn Washburn Breighner

Pasties are really wonderful and it surprises me how many people have not had this tasty meat pie. Legend has it that immigrants moving to the Upper Peninsula brought the pastie tradition with them. Miners wrapped the pasties in newspaper to keep them warm in their lunch pails.

Even though we live just 30 minutes from the Upper Peninsula, very few restaurants in our area serve pasties. So I have to make them. This recipe makes 10 pasties and is adapted from a recipe given to me years ago by former food editor and current restaurant owner Kathy Gibbons. Kathy got it from an Upper Peninsula pasty maker. Each pastie is enough for a meal.

2 lbs. of ground or chopped meat; beef or a beef/pork blend
4 large potatoes
1 med. rutabaga (don't skip the rutabaga!)
1 large onion
2 t. Penzey's beef base dissolved in 2 T hot water
salt and pepper to taste

And pie dough--enough to make 5 single pies. Each pastie requires 1/2 of the dough used in a single crust. So for our Mom's pie crust, I made 2 batches for double pies, and 1 batch for a single pie crust recipe giving me enough for 10 pasties: 5 cups of flour, 1 2/3 cups of Crisco, 2 1/2 t salt, about 1 1/4 cups ice water. I made the pie dough in separate batches, divided into 10 small pieces, wrapped each piece and chilled. When making each pastie, I removed one piece of dough from the fridge at a time leaving the rest to stay chilled.

Chop the potatoes and rutabaga into cubes. Chop the onion. Mix all the ingredients until well blended.

Roll out pie dough for one pastie into a circle. Place the meat filling on 1/2 of the circle, fold the dough over the meat filling to make a 1/2 circle. Brush with milk. Repeat for remaining 9 pasties. This takes a while but these freeze well so I usually make this large batch.

To prepare for freezing and later use, bake pasties at 350 degrees F for 20 min. until the crust is slightly firm. Flip over the pastie and bake for another 10 min. to firm up the other side. Cool, wrap, and freeze. To reheat, bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes until the crust is brown.

If you are eating the pasties the same day you make them, bake for 45-50 min. at 350 degrees F until the pasties are nicely browned.

We serve the pasties with gravy made from Penzey's beef base, flour, and water. Many pastie die hards only use Ketchup on their pasties!

This website, www.upper-peninsula-now.com/pasty-recipe.html, illustrates how to make a pastie although the recipe is a bit different and it uses store bought pie crust (shame, shame!).