Jamaican Beef Patties

Makes about 8

Jamaican patty is a pastry filled with a spicy mince beef filling, it is a meat pie. The pastry is golden yellow in colour, flavoured and coloured by turmeric, while the filling is flavoured by curry powder and scotch bonnet, a distinctive flavour found in lots of Jamaican recipes. 

Scotch bonnet is a type of chilli; they are very, very hot but also full of flavour, they are sweet and taste similar to a bell pepper. Adjust the amount of chilli and curry powder to suit your taste, you could leave out the scotch bonnet and use a mild curry powder if you don’t want your Jamaican patties to be hot. If you do like hot food scotch bonnets are fabulous and they have so much more flavour then a lot of other chillies.

Jamaican patties makes a great lunch, they taste wonderful hot and fresh but also great cold. Make a few extra and you have a quick, easy lunch, perfect for tomorrow at work.

Ingredients

Pastry

• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• ½ tsp salt
• 150g butter, cubed
• 6 tbsp cold water
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling

• 1 tbsp Olive oil
• 200g lean mince beef
• 200g can chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• ½ scotch bonnet chilli, finely chopped

Method

For the pastry

1. Mix the dry ingredients together, then mix in the butter until it looks like bread crumbs, add the water and knead into a dough.
2. On a floured surface roll out the dough to about 5mm thick. Cut the dough into circles using a plate as template.

For the filling

1. Heat the oil in a sauce pan, gently fry the onions, garlic and scotch bonnet until, the onions are soft and translucent.  Fry the mince then add the curry powder and cook until the beef browns. Then add the canned tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Place the filling onto one side of the pastry circles, brush water round the edge of the circles, fold over and press the edges together sealing them tight. Use a fork to crimp the edges.
3. Brush egg on the surface of the pastry and place on a greased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 25 minutes at 170C until the pastry is golden.