Haitian Patties

The recipe I used for this promised “Spicy, flavourful, delectable beef stuffed in puff pastry dough. Quick and easy Haitian Pate that comes together as quickly as they sail off the table. Ridiculously Delicious!!!” and BOY did it deliver! In Haiti these are called pates and are usually served for breakfast, I made them for lunch and made them a little bigger than what the recipe called for and then used the leftover beef in tacos as I didn’t have enough puff pastry dough to use up all the beef. The trick to getting amazing amounts of flavour is the Haitian seasoning, while you only need a tsp to a tbsp of it, it’s well worth making the batch and you can use it to season other things later as it will keep in the fridge for a few weeks. I used this recipe here and halved the quantity of Haitian seasoning in their recipe here as I wasn’t sure if I would use the whole lot or not later on.

Serves 4-5 as a starter or small meal

Ingredients:

Haitian seasoning:

• 10 sprigs of parsley finely chopped.

• 5 sprigs of thyme

• 1tsp ground cloves

• 5 cloves of garlic

• ½ cup of diced bell pepper and onion (a mix of both, not half a cup of each)

• ½ spring onions diced

• 1 tbsp dried basil

• 1 tsp salt and pepper

• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

• ½ cup olive oil

• 2tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 1 stock cube or 1 tbsp stock powder.

Patties:

• 500g of ground beef 5% fat

• 1 ½ tsp to 1 tbsp of Haitian seasoning (to taste)

• 3 cloves of garlic minced

• 1 stock cube or 1 tbsp of stock powder

• 1 tsp salt and pepper

• 2 tbsp of diced peppers

• 2 tbsp of diced onion

• 1 egg

• 1 packet of ready rolled puff pastry

Haitian seasoning method:

1. If using a stock cube crush it gently and mix with the apple cider vinegar to make a paste. Then add all of the ingredients to a blender and blend until it’s the consistency of pesto.

2. If not using a stock cube just blend all the ingredients.

Patties method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Then in a small bowl whisk the egg and set aside.

2. In a medium frying pan over medium heat add a little olive oil and brown the meat. Add the Haitian seasoning, garlic, stock powder or cube, salt, pepper, peppers and onion. Stir and do not cover.

3. Once the ingredients as well incorporated into the meat and there’s very little moisture left in the pan transfer it to a bowl and let it cool down slightly.

4. Roll the pastry out and cut it into even pieces and even numbers. You can do this on the baking paper that the pastry comes on.

5. Spoon the mixture onto one of the pieces leaving a 1cm border free, then cover with another pastry piece and press the edges down with a fork all around to seal.

6. Repeat with the remaining pieces and then place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

7. Brush with the beaten egg and bake for 25 minutes. Serve warm!