Cornish Pasty Gravy

A proper Cornish pasty has beef, swede, potato and onion, and enough white pepper to make itself known. Purists eat it dry in the hand and that is fair enough. But a pasty on a plate with gravy is a Cornish tea time standard too, and the gravy should taste like the inside of the pasty rather than like a Sunday roast. This one is built around swede and white pepper for exactly that reason.

Ingredients

Makes about 400ml, enough for four pasties

• 20g (¾oz) butter
• 1 medium onion chopped very finely
• 150g (5½oz) swede peeled and grated coarsely
• 1½ tbsp (25g) plain flour
• 500ml (18fl oz) beef stock hot
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp ground white pepper yes, a full teaspoon
• 1 tbsp double cream optional, Cornish if you can
• salt

Kit

• Saucepan
• Coarse grater
• Whisk

Method

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium low heat and sweat the onion for 8 minutes until soft and translucent with no colour on it. Pasty filling is never browned, so the gravy should not be either.

2. Add the grated swede and cook for 6 minutes, stirring, until it softens and smells sweet and slightly sulphurous. That smell is right and it mellows as it cooks.

3. Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.

4. Pour in half the hot stock, whisking until smooth, then the rest. Bring to a simmer.

5. Simmer for 12 minutes, stirring now and then. The swede shreds break down and thicken the gravy from the inside, so it ends up with a soft, slightly rough body rather than a slick one.

6. Add the Worcestershire sauce and the white pepper. Start with three quarters of a teaspoon, taste, and go to the full teaspoon if it is not making itself heard. A pasty gravy that is not peppery is missing the point.

7. Stir in the cream if using, season with salt, and take it off the heat. Serve it in a jug so people can dip or pour as they like, and keep it just thin enough to dunk a corner of pastry into without it sticking.

Tips worth knowing

• White pepper, not black. It is what goes in the pasty and it has a different heat, hotter and slightly fermented, that black pepper does not replicate.
• In Cornwall the yellow root vegetable in a pasty is called turnip even though it is swede. Buy swede, whatever the recipe you are reading calls it.
• If you have baked the pasties yourself, scrape any juices that have leaked onto the tray into the gravy. That is concentrated filling and it is worth having.
• Keep it loose. A thick gravy makes the pastry go soft in seconds, while a thinner one lets you dip without ruining the crimp.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps 3 days in the fridge. Freezes for 2 months, though the swede goes a little grainy, so blitz it briefly with a stick blender after reheating if that bothers you.

Questions people ask