Michigan Pasty Recipe | Yummy Beef Pasties w Vegetables + Easy Dough (2024)

FAQs

What are Michigan pasties made of? ›

Pasties were the original fast food of copper miners and lumberjacks. Brought here from the mining region of Cornwell, England, U.P. wives would fill the rolled-out dough with leftover beef, potato, onion and rutabaga, fold the pastry in half, seal the edges and bake.

There will always be great debate about the origin of the pasty, but one easy way to detect the Devon pasty from the Cornish is that the Devon pasty has a top-crimp and is oval in shape, whereas the Cornish pasty is semi-circular and side-crimped along the curve.

A pasty is a traditional Cornish hand pie. This dough uses lard and butter to create a flaky pastry crust to surround any filling. Substitute vegetable shortening for the lard for a vegetarian version.

Michigan pasties are a whole meal folded into a pastry shell. Most commonly they are filled with beef and root vegetables then baked until tender. These handheld meat pies are popular with my Yooper neighbors to the north in Michigan's upper peninsula who made these portable meals for Cornish miners.

Pasties are handheld turnovers filled with meat and vegetables. These savory stuffed pies were originally made for miners in Cornwall, England, to take down into the pits during “crib” time (meal time) because they were an easy, portable and sustaining food.

There are five main types of pastry dough for creating pastries: flaky, shortcrust, puff, choux and filo. All of them are made primarily from flour, water and fat. However, these five types of pastry dough each have slightly different core ingredients, different ratios of ingredients and, ultimately, different uses.

A proper Devon pasty always comprises of uncooked meat (beef skirt, traditionally) and veg in a circle of pastry. Always crimped before baking, which steams the contents beautifully and gives the case that gorgeous golden crunch.

Cornish pasties have won official recognition protection under the EU protected food names scheme, Food Minister Jim Paice announced today. After 200 years of being handed down from generation to generation, often by word of mouth, the recipe for Cornish pasties will be officially protected across Europe.

Pasties get a bit of a bad rep for being unhealthy, but in reality, they're a fairly good complete meal. Now, we're not recommending you eat one EVERY day, but you certainly shouldn't feel bad when you do reach for one. Or two! In fact, calories aren't a particularly good gauge of how healthy foods are for us.

How Is This Different From Pie Crust and Yeasted Pastry Dough? Pie crust, while buttery and flaky, is not nearly as light, doughy, and crisp as this shortcut puff pastry. Yeasted pastry dough, such as something we can use for croissants, croissant bread, or a pastry braid, contain yeast.

What is a Montana pasty? ›

Known mostly as “Irish Butte” Pasties in Montana, this is a simple, delicious, and savory food comprised of half-moon-shaped shells stuffed with meats and vegetables where the whole bundle is then cooked over the fire – the “proper” and the oldest technique of cooking pasties.

Fudgie. Perhaps the best known of northern Michigan nicknames, a fudgie is a person visiting our area. The nickname grew out of the simple fact that most people don't manage to leave without first buying fudge. Indeed, thousands of rectangular pounds of the sweet stuff are exported every year.

Noun. Woman wearing pasties. pasty (plural pasties) (chiefly in the plural) A small item of clothing that conceals little more than the nipple of a woman's breast, primarily worn by female exotic dancers.

Residents are nicknamed Yoopers (derived from "UP-ers") and have a strong regional identity, enhanced by the perception that the rest of the state neglects them.

Cornish and Finnish immigrants settled in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (U.P.) in the 1860s to mine copper and iron ore. The tradition of taking pasties down into the mines continued.

A Healthier Option Than Most Fast Food

Cornish pasties are made of simple ingredients which makes them much healthier than other fast food. It is stuffed with real vegetables, not just lettuce leaves and tomatoes as in fast food burgers. The swede fillings are enriched with calcium which is good for building the bone.

Even so, the pasty remains a staunchly regional dish. The Michigan pasty can trace its origins back to Cornwall in England. Cornwall is the peninsula on the southwestern coast of England that juts out into the sea. The Cornish were known for their mining skills.

If you're from the UP, chances are you've had more than your fair share of pasties. For the uninitiated, Yooper pasties trace their roots back to Cornish miners that migrated to the Upper Peninsula to work in the copper mines located in the Western Upper Peninsula.