Baking Traditional Welsh Oggie Pasties at Home

An Oggie Is a Welsh Pasty, and It Earned Its Place

Say the word "pastie" in south Wales and nobody thinks of a dainty little snack. An oggie is a serious article: a thick, hand-crimped parcel of lamb, potato and leek, sturdy enough to be carried down a pit in a coat pocket and still warm enough to be worth eating at the bottom of it. Generations of miners, quarrymen and farmers ate them at the start of a shift, holding the crimped seam as a handle and throwing the dirty end away afterwards.

You can buy them in any decent bakery from Swansea to Cardiff, but they are genuinely better made at home. The pastry stays crisp rather than clammy, you control the seasoning, and the kitchen smells like somewhere in Wales for a whole afternoon. This is a working recipe — nothing fussy, nothing wasted — and it makes six generous pasties.

The Filling: Lamb, Potato and Leek

Everything should be cut to roughly the same size, about the size of a small sugar cube, so that it all cooks through in the time the pastry takes to brown. Do not be tempted to mince or blitz anything. The texture is half the pleasure.

• 450g lamb shoulder, diced small — or mutton if you can get it, which is what the old recipes actually meant
• 400g potatoes, such as Maris Piper, peeled and diced small
• 1 large leek, white and pale green parts only, sliced thinly and rinsed well
• 150g swede or a small onion, finely diced
• 25g butter, cut into small pieces
• Salt and a great deal of freshly ground black pepper
• A few sprigs of thyme, leaves picked, if you like

Tip everything into a bowl and mix it thoroughly with your hands. Season far more boldly than feels comfortable — the vegetables will absorb a lot of salt during baking. Leave the bowl in the fridge while you make the pastry, so the mixture goes in cold.

A Pastry Built for Carrying

An oggie's pastry is not the short, crumbly sort you would use for a tart. It needs a bit of fight in it, which means a mix of butter for flavour and lard for structure. Lard also gives that faintly savoury note you cannot quite place in a proper bakery pasty.

• 450g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 115g cold butter, cubed
• 115g lard or vegetable shortening, cubed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg beaten with a splash of milk, for glazing
• About 8 tablespoons ice-cold water

Rub the fats into the flour and salt until you have a coarse, slightly uneven crumb — stop while there are still visible flecks of fat. Add the water a tablespoon at a time, cutting it in with a knife, until the dough just comes together. Bring it into a ball with your hands, flatten it into a disc, wrap it and rest it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Resting is not optional; it stops the pastry shrinking and splitting in the oven.

Shaping and Crimping

Heat the oven to 200°C (gas mark 6) and line a large baking tray with baking parchment. Divide the pastry into six equal pieces, roughly 130g each. Roll each one into a circle about 20cm across on a lightly floured surface — you want it thin enough to be elegant but thick enough to survive the filling.

Pile a sixth of the lamb mixture onto one half of each circle, leaving a clear 2cm border. Do not overfill, however tempting it is. Dot with butter, then brush the border with water. Fold the empty half over and press the edges together firmly with your fingers.

Now crimp. Working along the seam, fold the edge over on itself in small, tight twists, working from one end to the other. Practise on the first one and you will have it by the third. A properly crimped oggie holds its shape and keeps the juices in. Cut a small slit in the top of each pasty to let steam escape, then brush all over with the egg wash.

Into a Hot Oven

Bake on the middle shelf for 15 minutes at 200°C, then turn the oven down to 180°C (gas mark 4) and give them another 40 to 45 minutes. They are done when the pastry is deep golden and you can hear the filling bubbling inside when you lift one with a spatula. If they are browning too quickly, lay a sheet of foil loosely over the top.

Rest them on the tray for ten minutes before eating. The filling is molten straight from the oven and will take the roof off your mouth otherwise. They are excellent warm, very good cold the next day, and they freeze beautifully — bake them from frozen at 180°C for about 50 minutes.

Small Variations Worth Knowing

Some families add a handful of frozen peas, which sweeten the filling as they cook. Others swap the swede for carrot, or add a pinch of mustard powder to the meat. Older recipes sometimes made a two-ended pasty: lamb and potato in one half, stewed apple in the other, with a mark on the crust so the miner knew which end he was biting.

Whatever you put inside, the principle holds. Season boldly, cut small, crimp tightly, and bake until properly golden. Make a batch on a grey Sunday and you will understand why this humble pastry has outlasted the pits that made it famous.