Pasty

So I was looking in Tesco for something nice and snacky for lunch. None of the sandwiches appealed, so I went off in search of a cheese and onion pasty, but they had none. They did have Ginster's Cornish pasties though, and that got me thinking. I used to like a pasty - indeed I spent most of my early summer holidays with my grandparents in Cornwall, so I've tasted a few good ones, albeit many years ago. There was a shop in Tavistock that sold some belters, and we'd often visit another in Plymouth when we went there. (These days I believe vistors to Plymouth mainly go to get into a fight with some sailors - or so I'm led to believe.)

So I thought I'd give it a go. I then thought about doing a comparison with something a tad posher. Tesco didn't have any, so I popped into Marks and Sparks and picked up a "Handcrafted Beef Potato & Onion Pasty". Not a Cornish pasty - it was made in Yorkshire.

The ingredient lists are similar - the main differences are that M&S use butter rather than vegetable oil, and there's vegetable bouillon and water in the Ginster's but none in the M&S (are Ginster's boiling the veg in it? Does that account for maybe 10% water content in the end product? Not a clue.) The proportions differ a fair bit though. Largest first, as is the norm:

Ginster's: Potato, wheatflour, Veg oil, British beef (14%), Water, Onion, Swede etc.
M&S: Wheatflour, unsalted butter, British beef (19%), Potatoes (14%), Swede, Onions (7%), etc.

No photos for this I'm afraid - I scoffed them in the park, and didn't have a camera on me.

I decided to start with the Ginster's. Rather than biting in, I broke it open so that I could see what I was getting. The picture on the wrapper suggests that you're going to get large quantities of rich brown meat with a smattering of veg. Needless to say this isn't entirely true - there's very much more potato and swede in strangely-thin chunks, and considerably less meat - and the meat is greyer and sorrier-looking and of questionable texture. Having said that it looks perfectly pleasant.

So let's get stuck in. Scoff! Hey! That's not bad. Scoff! It's actually rather good. A third bite confirms this. It's nice and savoury and quite tasty, but the flavour is mostly well-seasoned potato and swede, lent a savoury quality from the meat, if not actually tasting much of it. The pastry is OK too (I'm not a huge fan of puff pastry in general and would rather have shortcrust, but this will do OK). There's bags of black pepper here too which is nice. I quite like the texture of the thing too - the chunks of veg remind me somewhat of the pasties of my childhood, but they were much chunkier and more interesting, and there's something not quite right with these - they're a tad on the crunchy side - at a guess they've used waxy potatoes when floury would perhaps be better (waxy might be more resilient for whatever treatment they're giving them maybe?). It's not a massive issue, but it's not quite right. Not bad at all though overall. I single out a raggedy-looking piece of meat for closer consideration on its own. It's not especially nice - not actually unpleasant but it's veering a little close to a smell I recall filling the kitchen when my mum used to boil bones for stock. Not great. But the pasty is nice regardless.

This got me thinking - you could replicate this without the meat easily, I reckon. It tastes mainly of the veg, pastry and the seasoning. There's definitely some additionally savouriness, but you could fake that with umami-rich stuff like miso etc. The pleasure in eating this is mainly in the flavour of the peppery veg and pastry/combo, and the contrast between textures of the dry flaky pastry and the moist chunky potato and swede. So why on Earth can't I buy a veggie version of it? I tried a Quorn pasty out of curiosity a few years ago (criminally they didn't even think to call it Quornish) and it was hopeless - full of this brown sludge of mashed spud and quorn and tasting of largely nothing. Chunky veg, good seasoning, something meaty-tasting - you'd have something equal to or better than this. If I want a pasty I usually have to opt for a disappointing cheese and onion effort (in a blind-taste test with some of these (I'm giving M&S a particularly hard stare here) you'd be hard-pushed to identify either cheese or onion as an ingredient). I'm going to fire off an email to Ginster's, I reckon.

So with the Ginster's half way down, I turn my attention to the M&S one. I take it out of the wrapper - my fingers get wet with grease from the bottom of the pasty. Not pleasant, but probably rustic, or something. Again I break it open to get a look at the insides. Ew! It looks horrible. At this point I really regretted not having a camera (indeed, I did pack up and start to go home to fetch it, but it was such a nice day I didn't get too far before going back to the tree I'd been sitting under and cracking on). It was a smooth yellowish-greyish-brownish blob of matter with orange flecks of swede in it. They've done what Quorn did - smash all the ingredients up together into a stodgy lump of matter. It looked fantastically unappetising.

Oh well - I take a big bite. And then another one. Nope! Still not getting anything in the way of flavour. Or texture (beyond the pastry - which doesn't taste that bad, and at least provides a texture contrast to the "stuff" it has the misfortune to contain). This is completely anonymous. There's almost nothing there. It's got more meat and it's made with butter, but it's got so little flavour it's untrue. I can't even isolate a nugget of meat to give that a go on its own, because the filling's a homogenous lump. I take one last bite and then fling the rest away - it'll probably get scoffed by a magpie or seagull or a lucky neighbourhood cat. Rather them than me. And then I polish off the rest of the Ginster's.

So, in summary - Ginster's pasties are pretty good I reckon - certainly for ready-made snacky-happiness. I'm going to ignore the M&S thing entirely. So let's see - I think these are going in between corned beef and scallops. It's cheap and cheerful and easy and tasty, albeit I'm not sure how big a part the meat played in this. Scallops may well get a chance to rise above though should I have a crack at them cooked in a restaurant.

Hiatus

OK - bit of a gap. Lack of time. Lots of other things to work on. Other excuses.

I did try having a pop at bacon. I thought, what with the internet thinking it's amazing, and me not actually caring much for the stuff back in the day that it would be a revelation. Unfortunately not - didn't get on with it much, and the first couple of goes were exceptionally salty. I was so underwhelmed I didn't bother writing it up. Maybe I'll give it another go later.

Regardless, I do plan to continue - hopefully shortly. Not sure what I'll pick next, but I'll try to make in interesting enough to ensure a write up.