Pumpkin Pasties recipe

 
As any Harry Potter-fan, one of the things I love in the books is all the interesting food. Yesterday happened to be my birthday, and although I rarely throw parties I decided to do so this time, and decided that if I was to recreate a Great Hall dinner this was a good opportunity. I must have been cooking from morning to afternoon, ending up with a variety of dishes I found on this list: Harry Potter Food

Some dishes that appear in the books aren't really represented in real life - or weren't until the books came out. One of those things that I was really dying to try was the treat Harry buys on his first trip to Hogwarts, from the Tea Trolley: Pumpkin Pasties. Now, before this party I'd never had pumpkin, and I wasn't really sure where to buy any. The recipe I found and wanted to try was a non-sweet one - as I'm not all that fond of too much sweets - and wanted something a bit more, well, food-ish and less dessert-ish.

That recipe said to use canned pumpkin, but the pumpkin I eventually bought wasn't canned but fresh. I had a lovely talk with a really sweet cashier from the middle east, who explained with much patience the difference between different pumpkins and what you could do with them. He was delighted to hear I was doing pasties, and I was quite surprised he knew what a pasty was as it doesn't really have a Swedish equivalent.

I'm going to share the recipe with you, with some changes that I made to it. The original had cheddar cheeze, but I didn't have that so I grabbed the left over cheese I had in the fridge, which happened to be Gouda. All measurements are approximate and not definite. Any spices can, of course, be fresh.

Pumpkin pasties (16+ pieces)

1 1/2 cup fresh, minced pumpkin (Or equivalent canned - just squeeze the water out)
1 cup of your favourite cheese, grated.
Thyme
Salt
Pepper
Rosemary

Dough: 2 sheets of puff pastry, sliced in 8 equal pieces
Glaze with egg white

Mix all the ingredients, and heat the oven up to  200ºC (or 400ºF). Put out two baking trays with parchment paper. The pasties won't grow so much, but to be on the safe side, only place 8 on each tray.

Place some filling on the sticky side of a puff pastry piece (in the middle, shape the filling with a spoon), and with your thumb, press along the filling until the filling is shaped like half a moon. Cut off excess pastry with a pair of scissors, and then use a fork to seal the edge. Make a few holes in the top with the fork.

Glaze the pasties with egg white, and send it into the oven until golden brown. They're delicious both warm and cold, and can safely be heated in a microwave oven. Enjoy! <3