Cherie Hausler dropped by the Sunrise studio on Sunday, preparing her perfect vegetable pasties.
The Barossa Valley cook just released her new book, A Plant-Based Farmhouse, which gives home chefs delicious meal ideas.
The foreword of the book is written by Australian cooking icon, Maggie Beer.
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Recipe below:
Roasted vegetable pasties
Makes: 4 pasties
Ingredients
— 980 g (2 lb 3 oz) mixed roasted vegetables, at room temperature, cut into 2 cm (¾ in) cubes (for the photo I’ve used fennel, potato, and brussels sprouts)
— 3 g (2 teaspoons) chopped lemon thyme
— 3 g (2 teaspoons) chopped fresh sage
— Almond or soy milk, for brushing
— Tomato sauce, to serve
Spelt Pastry
— 240 g (8 ½ oz) plain (all-purpose) white spelt flour, plus extra for dusting
— g (1 oz) extra virgin coconut oil
— 5 g (1 teaspoon) salt
— 75–90 ml (2 ½ – 3 fl oz) water, enough to pull dough together
Method
Without a doubt, homemade pasties are a brilliant thing to have on hand — or even better, in hand. And if you do a weekly roast using lots of different vegetables, then pasties become fast-food options — fast, just not junky.
Fast whole food can be a thing if it’s broken down into sizeable chunks throughout the week.
Make a weekly vegetable roast a part of your meal prep, and all of a sudden roast vegetable pasties are making a regular appearance.
You can use any roasted vegetables in these pasties. Potatoes, fennel, brussels sprouts, pumpkin (winter squash), cauliflower and even beetroot work well — just don’t go for anything with too much liquid, like tomatoes.
The pastry is really quick to prepare, and versatile too. I use it for samosas, pies, ‘sausage’ rolls — anything pastry wrapped.
— Preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F).
— Combine the roasted vegetables in a large bowl with the fresh herbs. Stir together and season to taste with salt and black pepper.
— To make the pastry, combine the flour, coconut oil and salt in a food processor and blitz for 30 seconds. Slowly add a little water at a time until the dough pulls together to form a ball.
— Place the ball of pastry on a floured board and cut into four even pieces. Have a small bowl of water ready to dip your fingers into.
— Using a rolling pin, roll one pastry piece out into a circle about 20 cm (8 in) in diameter.
— Place one-quarter of the filling mixture in a small mound along the centre line, tapering at each end. Use your fingers to wet the edges of the pastry.
— Pull the two sides over the filling and press together, using your index finger and thumb, to concertina the join, working all the way around to each end. Finally, fold the very last piece of dough at each end over itself, to completely seal the pasty.
— Repeat with the remaining dough and filling to make four pasties. Brush a little milk across the top of the pasties.
— Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until the pastry just starts to colour and is cooked on the bottom. This is not the kind of pastry that puffs up, so don’t wait for that as a sign it’s ready.
— Remove from the oven and slide onto a wire rack, to ensure your pasties don’t end up with soggy bottoms. Nothing worse.
We always eat ours with Dad’s homemade tomato sauce. Not sure if they can be called pasties without sauce!