Pace Salsa Recipe Challenge: Pies & Pasties

Pace Salsa asked if I would be interested in participating in a recipe challenge and use their salsa to create new recipes. I love to experiment with cooking, so this sounded like fun to me!

Recipe Two: Meat, Potato, and Salsa Pasties

For tonight’s dinner, I thought I’d get really creative and make pasties with a salsa-tinged filling. British cooking meets Tex-Mex! I figured this would either be fantastic or a disaster, but either way, it would be memorable.

First, I oiled my frying pan and added some cube steak that was in the freezer – just under half a pound. However, a package of ground beef would work even better. I added 1/4 cup of Pace Black Bean and Roasted Corn Salsa to marinate, and cooked it over a low heat. Once finished, I let the meat cool and then diced it into small chunks.

Next, I cut three potatoes into small cubes and boiled until done.

Then I made the pastry. I used my tried and true Oil Pastry recipe, which is easy, frugal, and gets rave reviews each time – click here for the recipe.

I rolled the pastry out, and cut it into four strips. I should have just made two big pasties, but I wanted to make four so that we would have leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Next, I filled half of each pastry square with the meat mixture, potatoes, and covered with salsa and a dash of sea salt. Then I folded the other half over and pinched the sides together, like so:

I heated the oven to 350, and cooked the pasties for half an hour. Bear in mind that my oven is on the fritz, so your cooking time will vary! Keep an eye on the pastry and cook until slightly brown and flaky.

The final product

These were pretty good, but I’m so used to regular meat and potato pasties that the spicy flavor of the salsa kept surprising my taste buds – but it was an odd mixture of cuisines in the first place, so I knew I was taking a risk. Jai said these were his favorite out of the three salsa recipes that I’ve created, but I don’t think I can get used to eating a salsa pasty, although it was a good dinner. But hey, marks for creativity, right?!

Now, as it turned out, I had a lot of filling left over. So I decided to make another dish:

Recipe Three: Meat, Potato, and Salsa Pie

I made a second pastry crust, lined a pie dish with it, and then filled it with the meat and potatoes. I added some dollops of salsa to taste, and decided that I needed a binding agent since it was going to be a one-crust pie. I mixed together 2 eggs and one cup of milk, and added this mixture to the pie. I put it in the oven with the pasties, and cooked it at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, then turned the oven down to 300 and cooked for another 20 minutes. In retrospect, I should have added less milk and cooked it at a lower temperature for longer.

The finished product

Looks sort of like a quiche, doesn’t it? We just had a few bites of this tonight, since we were so full from the pasties. The texture is a bit too spongy for me, which is why I wish I’d used less milk. It’s not bad, although it’s suffering from the same culture shock as the pasties! I think the texture might be better after it’s been refrigerated.