Jamaican beef patty

As tradition built it

Jamaican beef patty

Makes 8. About 2 hours, including chilling and baking.

Ingredients

The filling

• 320ml scallions, roughly chopped
• 160ml white onion, diced
• 4 tsp thyme leaves
• 4 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 Scotch bonnet, thinly sliced
• 2cm piece ginger, peeled
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 900g minced beef
• 160ml fresh breadcrumbs
• 160ml beef stock
• 2 tbsp browning
• 2 tsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 4¾ tsp powdered gelatine

The crust

• 960ml plain flour
• 7 tsp sugar
• 5 tsp ground turmeric
• 1½ tsp curry powder
• 1½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 120ml cold vegetable shortening
• 360ml cold beef suet
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 large egg
• 160ml ice cold water, plus more as needed

Method

The filling

1. Purée the scallions, onion, thyme, paprika, garlic and onion powders, allspice, garlic, Scotch bonnet and ginger in a food processor.
2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Cook the purée 2 minutes, until soft. Add the beef and cook 3 to 5 minutes, until brown.
3. Stir in the breadcrumbs, stock, browning, salt, pepper and gelatine, and cook about 25 minutes, until thick.

The crust

4. Mix the flour, sugar, turmeric, curry powder, salt and baking powder. Work in the shortening with a fork until it looks like peas, then add the suet without mashing it.
5. Whisk the vinegar and egg into the iced water and stir it in gradually to a soft dough, adding water a tablespoon at a time if it needs it. Cover and chill 20 minutes.

Shaping and baking

6. Heat the oven to 190°C. Divide the dough into 8. Roll each piece into a 20cm round, fold it over on itself and roll again, at least 5 times, to build layers.
7. Put 80ml of filling on each round, fold it over and seal the edge with a fork. Set them on a floured tray.
8. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, until golden and flaky.

Notes

Chinese-Jamaican bakeries remain the dominant historic producers, a direct continuation of the grocery and bakery trade those indentured labourers' descendants established across the island.

A recurring claim that scallion in the filling is a Chinese-indenture legacy is presented even by its own sources as speculative rather than documented.

The recipe is Andre Fowles's, the Kingston-born chef, for Vice. Neither he nor Taneisha Morris puts cumin in the filling, and in both the turmeric is in the crust. Morris makes 12 smaller patties with a butter and shortening crust, brushes them with egg and bakes them at 177°C for 30 to 32 minutes.

What a modern chef changes

Clarified lamination, confit onion

Method

1. Laminate the pastry with clarified butter passed through a chinois rather than whole butter, for a cleaner, shorter flake and a higher smoke point through the bake.
2. Confit the beef filling's onion at a genuinely low, long heat, the same low-and-slow principle Volume 26's empanada de pino used for exactly the same reason, so the onion loses its raw acidity entirely before it meets the pastry.
3. Finish the filling with a dust of freshly toasted, freshly ground pimento from the spice grinder rather than pre-ground allspice.