Jamaican Style Beef Patties

I've been promising the hubby an attempt at Jamaican Beef patties for a while now. In Haiti (hubby's home country), they eat Jamaican patties, but call them "Patty Burger". Here in America, they're one of his favorite "freezer aisle treats" - and, I figured that they couldn't be too hard to make.

After watching an episode of the Food Network's "Have Fork, Will Travel" - I decided that this past weekend was the time to give them a try!

Overall, they turned out great! G loved them. Next time, I think I will fiddle with the crust recipe a little bit, as it could have used some more lightness and flakiness. But, this is coming from the girl who, to date, has never baked a pie. I sense one coming soon, though.

Warning - these little patties are pretty spicy. If you're not used to these flavors, I would highly recommend cutting the spices in 1/2, since I used more spices than most of the recipes I found online called for. We like a little flava in our house! ;)

Becareful when working with scotch bonnet peppers. Do not touch your eyes, wash your hands with soap and water after touching, and, do not sautee them by themselves. I once had to evacuate the house for 20 minutes because of the vapors! Scotch bonnet peppers are basically the yellow/orange version of habernero peppers. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of pepper, check out this link.

The recipe calls for ground allspice, which is a characteristic spice in Jamaican cooking. I used ground up allspice berries, because they didn't have the ground stuff at the Latin market by my house. If you purchase the allspice in an ethnic market, it may also be called pimento, or ground pimento.

The curry powder and annato in the crust recipe is added for coloring. Typically, Jamaican beef patties are yellowish/orangish in color.

Since I had fresh thyme on hand, that's what I used - however, crushed thyme would work fine as well.

Jamaican Style Beef Patty Recipe
Source: Based loosely on a recipe from about.com and Jeff Lee's Recipe on allrecipes.com
Makes approx. 25 small patties.

Crust:
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground annato (optional - for color)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
approx 1 cup water

Filling:
1.5 pounds ground beef
2 small onion, finely diced (I used my Pampered chef chopper & it worked beautifully!)
2 scotch bonnet peppers (Becareful!), finely chopped - not including the seeds, stems or veins
2 teaspoon curry powder
2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon dried thyme (or, leaves from approx 10 sprigs of thyme)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup beef or chicken broth
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten

If you are not accustomed to strong flavors or spiciness, I recommend halving the amounts of pepper, curry, allspice, and thyme.

Prepare the filling:
In a heavy skillet, saute the onion until it becomes limp. Add the ground beef, Scotch bonnet pepper, allspice, salt, pepper, curry powder and thyme and mix well. Brown the meat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the breadcrumbs and stock and combine all the ingredients well. Cover the skillet and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. When all the liquids have been absorbed, the filling is ready. It should be moist but not watery. It may look kind of like dogfood (but, it tastes good!) Remove the skillet from the stove and preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Prepare the pastry:
Sift the flour, curry powder and salt into a large bowl. Cut in the shortening and margarine until crumbly. Add the cold water to make a stiff dough (you may need a little more or less water). Lightly flour a surface and roll out the dough until about 1/8-inch thick. Make sure it's rolled fairly thin.
At this point, I used my Pampered chef cut-n-seal to make the patties easily. Place approx 2 tablespoons of filling on half of each. DO NOT OVERFILL, or they will break open/leak. A couple of tablespoons of filling is plenty. Alternatively, you can out circles, put the filling in, and seal with a fork. Lightly brush the pastry with a mixture of the egg and water. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for approx 15-20 minutes.

These actually taste best after a night in the refrigerator, warmed up in the microwave for approx 30sec-1min!