These Sunshine Jamaican Patties are a great vegetarian recipe idea perfect for a meal, a snack or a lunch box filler. Best of all they can also be frozen – if everyone can resist eating them all at once. This particular recipe is from Levi Roots – Caribbean Food Made Easy. I have re-written it to make each step easier to follow.
About this Sunshine Jamaican Patties Recipe
This recipe has been written in a way that is as easy as possible to follow. Please read each of the ingredients and equipment sections before you begin to make sure that you have all that you need. Note this will take you at least 75 minutes so make sure you have enough time.
How We Discovered the Sunshine Jamaican Patties
During our time of Home Education I taught the boys things that I felt would be useful in their lives after education. Obviously cooking was one of them but also for me it was important to look at how different people live their lives. Besides which the children had a massive input into how our education was led and we ended up exploring how people around the world cooked/eat differently.
This is where we stumbled upon Jamaica and the Sunshine Jamaican Patties (and also how to make our own Bounty bar from coconut!).
Making the Pastry and the Benefits of Turmeric
Obviously you could cheat and buy ready-made pastry but Sunshine Jamaican Patties have turmeric in the pastry. This is what gives them that love sunshine appearance in my opinion. Turmeric is good for those who are going through perimenopause/menopause. Apparently it can help with hormone regulation and relive symptoms such as hot flushes, joint pain, and muscle soreness. Plus reducing weight-gain and anxiety; whilst increasing cognitive function and enhancing mood.
How to Make the Sunshine Jamaican Patties Filling
Ingredients:
- 1 Yellow Pepper – deseeded and diced
- 150 g Carrots – peeled and diced
- 300g Butternut squash – peeled, deseeded and diced
- 4 tablespoons of chopped fresh Coriander leaves
- 4 Spring Onions finely chopped
- 200g Tin of Sweetcorn (drained)
- Water (for boiling)
- 100g Grated Orange Cheese (such as Double Gloucester or Red Leicester).
Equipment
- Saucepan
- Drainer/colander
- Bowl
Method for Making the Sunshine Jamaican Patties Filling:
- First prepare your vegetables. It is easier to cut the butternut squash if you first place it in the microwave for around 4 minutes.
- Second place the pepper, carrots and butternut squash into a saucepan with a small amount of just boiled water.
- And then cook and cover for 4 minutes.
- Next drain and put in a bowl and mix with the coriander, spring onions, sweetcorn and cheese.
- Lastly leave to cool completely.
How to Make the Pastry
Ingredients:
- 225g Plain Flour (extra for dusting later)
- 1.5 teaspoon Ground Turmeric
- Pinch of salt (optional)
- 110g Butter – cut into small cubes
- Water
Equipment for the Pastry
- Bowl
- Knife to cut butter
- Scales for measuring
- Measuring spoons (or some other way to ensure the right quantities)
- Cling film
- Fridge
Method:
- First put the flour, turmeric and a pinch of salt (optional) into a bowl and run in the butter with your fingers.
- Next add 4-5 tablespoons of cold water – mixing quickly with a knife until the pastry comes together.
- Afterwards roll into a ball and wrap in cling film.
- Lastly chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
How to Make Sunshine Jamaican Patties
Other Ingredients
- Egg – beaten to glaze. Alternatively milk.
- Plain flour for dusting
Other Equipment
In addition to the equipment needed for the pastry and filling you will need:
- Oven
- Pastry brush (to glaze the pastry)
- Baking tray
- Greaseproof paper
- Fish slice (for removing Sunshine Jamaican Patties)
- Cooling rack
- Circular cutter – a glass will do if you don’t have one.
- Fork.
- Oven Gloves.
Method for Making Sunshine Jamaican Patties
- First prepare the Sunshine Jamaican Patties filling (see above)
- Secondly, while the filling is cooling, make the Sunshine Jamaican Patties Pastry (again see above)
- Then preheat the oven to 200 degrees
- After your pastry has been chilled cut it into 6 or 8 pieces depending on the size that you want your Sunshine Jamaican Patties to be.
- Lightly dust a surface with more flour and roll the first piece of pastry into a large circle. You will want the pastry to be about ¼ inch/ ½ cm thick around the edge. You can use anything circular if you do not have cutters but the size will make a difference to how much mix your patties will hold.
- Put the filling on one side of the pastry (an 8th of the mix if making 8 and a 1/6th if making 6).
- Immediately brush the edge with some egg glaze or milk.
- Fold the other half of the pastry circle over the filled half.
- Then press the edges together to seal, using a fork to crimp the edges.
- Brush the patties with the remaining egg glaze using the pastry brush.
- And then place on a grease-proof paper lined baking tray.
- At this point they are ready to cook but can be left prepared in the fridge until you are ready. Alternatively, before this, the mixture itself can be frozen.
- Cook in the oven for 30 minutes or until nice and golden on the outside.
- Finally remove from oven (with oven gloves) using a fish slice and allow to cool on a cooling rack.
- Indeed once they have cooled they can be eaten or frozen for a later time.
- Preparation Time 15 minutes (plus 30 minutes for chilling the pastry)
- Cooking Time 30 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hr 15 minutes
Conclusion
On the whole Sunshine Jamaican Patties are very tasty, easy to make and a good way to get turmeric and vegetables into your diet. Alternatively, of course you could also add meat to the patties! Personally I do not know what I do wrong other than making them small but we always end up with loads of filling left over using these quantities. But it is easy enough to make more pastry!
Enjoy!
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How to Make Short Crust Pastry