Take the ingredients of a ploughman’s lunch – including the pickled onions – and pack them inside delicious, peppery pastry for a Stilton ploughman’s on the go. Serve the pasties warm or cold with a side of your favourite sauce or chutney.
Howard
Series 4
Serves:
6
Difficulty:
Needs skill
Hands-On Time:
45 mins
Baking Time:
35 mins
- Ingredients
- Method
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Method
Step 1
Heat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan/425°F/Gas 7.
Step 2
Tip the peppercorns into a mortar and crush them with the pestle to a coarse powder. Add them to a food processor, along with the flours, butter, vegetable fat and salt. Blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Step 3
Add the whole egg and the egg yolk to the food processor and pulse to combine, then add the water through the feed tube and pulse again to form a dough. Remove the dough from the processor and use your hands to bring it together into a ball. Wrap the ball in cling film and place it in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
Step 4
Make the filling. Using the apple corer, remove the cores from the apples and cut each apple into 12 slices. Arrange the slices over the base of the lined dish in two long rows.
Step 5
Drizzle over the olive oil, then place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes, until the apples are soft.
Step 6
Meanwhile, place the pickled onions in a bowl and crumble the Stilton over. Add the walnuts and mix to combine. Set aside.
Step 7
Remove the chilled pastry from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thick. Using the 13cm diameter bowl, cut out 6 circles from the pastry, re-rolling the trimmings as necessary. Place the circles on the lined baking sheet. Gather up and reserve any trimmings that are left over.
Step 8
Place 2 softened apple slices in the middle of each pastry circle and top with a good spoonful of the cheese mixture. Brush the edges of the pastry circles with some of the egg white, then fold each circle in half over the filling and crimp the edges with a fork.
Step 9
Re-roll the reserved pastry trimmings until 2mm thick and cut into 1cm-wide strips. Brush the strips with some more of the egg white and sprinkle the poppy seeds over.
Step 10
Use the remaining egg white to brush the tops of the pasties. Place 3 of the poppy-seed pastry strips across the top of each pasty, trimming to fit as necessary, then bake the pasties for 15–20 minutes, until crisp and golden.
