Easy vegan baked bean and cheese pasty

Kip

14 years ago

vegan baked bean and cheese pasty on a patterned red and black plate with some lettuce

A few weeks ago my friend Holley told me about a pasty shop from her native town in Cornwall, reminiscing about her favourite cheese and bean pasty she consumed before choosing to ditch dairy.

Of course what she meant by the story was that I should make a vegan version for her, so that's just what I did. Nevermind that I ate them all. It sounded like an easy task, and since I've taken up cycling when I need to get somewhere local I've had a more monstrous appetite than usual. I made these on one of the nights after a day of being out on my bike. By "day of being out," I probably mean I just cycled to the store and back.

Whatever, I'm a pastry enabler. I don't need excuses. The point is a good pasty is easy and filling, which is just what you want after a difficult .03 mile cardio workout.

Recipe Notes

If you've got some leftover filling or are nervous about packing the pastries too tight then just pop it into an oven proof ramekin, cover it with foil, and bake with the pasties! That was my breakfast the next day.

I used Edam cheezly but I'm confident enough in the cheddar to recommend it anyway. In fact I think most vegan hard cheeses would work, but if you use something else then don't go by the weight I provided below; instead go by the 1 cup. A teaspoon or two of marmite in the mix also won't go wrong.

Baked Bean, Onion, and Cheezly Pasty

Makes 3 large pasties

Ingredients
- 400 g tin baked beans
- 140 g (scant cup) waxy new potatoes, cut in ¼ inch slices
- 85 g (1 cup) Cheezly
- 60 g (about ½ cup) chopped onion
- 15 g (¼ cup) nutritional yeast
- Pinch of two of black pepper
- 500g shortcrust pastry (I use Jus Rol)
- soy milk, for brushing

Directions/Method
1. Make a half-arsed attempt to mix the beans, potato slices, cheezly (go for a cheddar-y flavour. Edam works too), onion, nutritional yeast, and black pepper in a medium bowl. Taste it and add more salt and/or pepper if needed.
2. Roll the pastry to around ⅛ inch thick and cut into three 8-9 inch circles (a plate makes a good template). Brush the edges with soy milk and plop a heaped ½ cup filling in the centre of each. Fold the pastry edges up to the centre and pinch them together, pleating or folding over as you go. Brush the outside with soy milk and poke a hole either side of the pleat (this lets the steam out while cooking).
3. Bake on a sheet at 180 C (350 F) for around 40 minutes, until the pastry is lightly browned. Eat hot or cold (but if you opt for the former let it cool a bit to save burning your piehole off).