Chef Lupita
Adobo de Puerco Poblano
Puebla's weekday adobo of pork shoulder braised in a thick guajillo and ancho sauce sharpened with vinegar, cumin, and clove. The deep red of a market spice stall, the dish a poblana cooks without thinking.
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Pastes Hidalguenses de Real del Monte
Created by
Hidalgo's baked pastry turnovers from the silver-mining town of Real del Monte, filled with hand-diced beef, potato, leek, and chile serrano. Cornish dough, Mexican filling, born underground.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Comfort Food
Picnic
Make Ahead
1 hr
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 45 min total
Yield12 pastes
Pastes are from Hidalgo. Specifically from Real del Monte, the old silver-mining town in the Sierra Madre where Cornish miners arrived in the 1820s to work the shafts and brought their food with them. The Cornish pasty became the paste, with an s, pronounced PAH-stay. Same dough, same crimp on the top, same idea of a self-contained meal a working man could carry into the mine. But the filling changed. The miners' wives, and then the Mexican women who married into the community, added chile serrano, switched to manteca de cerdo, and over a century and a half made it a dish that belongs to Hidalgo and to no one else.
The original is the paste of carne con papa, beef and potato with the chile verde that makes it Mexican. There are now sweet versions filled with pineapple, with rice pudding, with mole. There are tinga pastes, chicharron pastes, frijoles pastes. The carne con papa is the mother. Start there.
What matters in a paste: the dough is half lard and half butter, not all butter. The filling goes in raw and cooks inside the crust, which is why the dice has to be small and even. The crimp sits on top, not on the side, so a man with dirty hands could hold it by the crimp and eat the rest clean. Every detail comes from the mine. This is not a fusion dish in the modern marketing sense. It is two food traditions that lived together in one town for two centuries and produced something neither one of them could have made alone. Cada estado, su propia cocina. Hidalgo's is this one.
Cornish miners began arriving in Real del Monte in 1825, brought by the British-owned Compania de Minas to revive silver operations after the Mexican War of Independence had crippled the local economy. They came in significant numbers, perhaps 350 men with their families over the following decades, and stayed long enough to leave a Cornish cemetery on the hillside above the town and a soccer tradition that predates most of Mexico's. The paste evolved from the Cornish pasty over generations through the addition of chile, the substitution of lard for tallow, and the eventual proliferation of fillings drawn from the Mexican pantry. The town of Real del Monte holds an annual Festival Internacional del Paste and is officially recognized as the dish's denomination of origin within Mexico.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
all-purpose flour
Quantity
4 cups, plus more for rolling
kosher salt
Quantity
1 teaspoon
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
1 cup
cold and cut into pieces
unsalted butter
Quantity
1/2 cup
cold and cut into pieces
ice water
Quantity
3/4 cup, plus more as needed
large egg
Quantity
1
beaten with 1 tablespoon milk for egg wash
beef skirt steak or sirloin
Quantity
12 ounces
finely diced into 1/4-inch pieces
yellow potatoes
Quantity
2 medium
peeled and finely diced into 1/4-inch pieces
small white onion
Quantity
1
finely diced
fresh chile serrano
Quantity
2
stemmed and finely chopped, seeds in for heat
small leek
Quantity
1
white and pale green parts only, finely diced
fresh parsley
Quantity
2 tablespoons
finely chopped
fresh thyme leaves
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Worcestershire sauce
Quantity
2 teaspoons
kosher salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1 teaspoon
manteca de cerdo for the filling
Quantity
2 tablespoons
melted
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| all-purpose flour | 4 cups, plus more for rolling |
| kosher salt | 1 teaspoon |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard)cold and cut into pieces | 1 cup |
| unsalted buttercold and cut into pieces | 1/2 cup |
| ice water | 3/4 cup, plus more as needed |
| large eggbeaten with 1 tablespoon milk for egg wash | 1 |
| beef skirt steak or sirloinfinely diced into 1/4-inch pieces | 12 ounces |
| yellow potatoespeeled and finely diced into 1/4-inch pieces | 2 medium |
| small white onionfinely diced | 1 |
| fresh chile serranostemmed and finely chopped, seeds in for heat | 2 |
| small leekwhite and pale green parts only, finely diced | 1 |
| fresh parsleyfinely chopped | 2 tablespoons |
| fresh thyme leaves | 1 tablespoon |
| Worcestershire sauce | 2 teaspoons |
| kosher salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1 teaspoon |
| manteca de cerdo for the fillingmelted | 2 tablespoons |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy rolling pin
- •Two rimmed sheet pans
- •Parchment paper
- •Sharp paring knife for hand-dicing the filling
- •Pastry brush for the egg wash
- •Bench scraper for portioning the dough
Instructions
- 1
Make the pastry
Whisk the flour and salt in a wide bowl. Add the cold lard and cold butter. Work them into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse meal with some pea-sized pieces still visible. You want the fat in pieces, not melted into the flour. Those pieces are what give the paste its flake. Manteca and butter together is how it is done in Real del Monte. The lard for flavor and tenderness, the butter for structure. Both are needed.
If your kitchen is warm, freeze the lard and butter for ten minutes first. Warm fat melts into the flour and you lose the flake. Cold hands, cold fat, cold water. Always. - 2
Hydrate the dough
Drizzle in the ice water a little at a time, tossing with a fork. Stop adding water the moment the dough comes together when you squeeze a handful. It should not be wet or sticky. Press the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least one hour. The rest is not optional. The gluten needs to relax or the paste will shrink and tear when you fold it.
- 3
Cut the filling by hand
While the dough rests, dice everything by hand. Not in a food processor. The texture of paste is a fine, even dice that holds its shape after baking. The potato, the beef, the onion, the leek, the serrano: all the same size, about a quarter inch. This takes patience. No me vengas con atajos. The Cornish miners who brought this dish here cut their filling raw and so do we.
- 4
Mix the filling raw
Combine the diced beef, potato, onion, leek, serrano, parsley, and thyme in a bowl. Add the Worcestershire, salt, pepper, and melted lard. Mix with your hands until everything is evenly coated. The filling goes into the paste raw. It cooks inside the dough during baking. That is the genius of this dish. The juices stay sealed in, the potato softens against the beef, the chile perfumes everything.
The serrano is what makes a Hidalguense paste Hidalguense. The Cornish version never had chile. The miners' wives in Real del Monte added it and that is when the dish became Mexican. Do not skip it. - 5
Roll and cut the pastry
Heat the oven to 400F. Line two sheet pans with parchment. Divide the chilled dough into twelve equal pieces. Roll each piece on a lightly floured surface into a circle about six inches across and an eighth of an inch thick. Work with one or two at a time and keep the rest refrigerated. Warm dough is hard to seal.
- 6
Fill and crimp
Place about three tablespoons of filling on one half of each circle, leaving a half-inch border. Brush the border with the egg wash. Fold the dough over to form a half-moon. Press the edges to seal. Now crimp: starting at one corner, fold a small section of the edge over on itself, press, then fold the next section over, press, and continue along the seam. The crimp should sit on top of the paste, not on the side. Real del Monte crimp. The miners' wives crimped it this way so a man could hold the paste by the crimp with dirty hands and eat the rest clean.
If your crimp keeps coming undone, your dough has gotten warm. Slide the tray into the fridge for ten minutes and try again. Cold dough holds a crimp. - 7
Bake until deep golden
Arrange the pastes on the sheet pans with at least two inches between them. Brush the tops with the remaining egg wash. Cut one small vent in the top of each with the tip of a sharp knife. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the crust is deep golden brown, almost mahogany at the crimp, and you can hear the filling bubbling inside when you bring your ear close. A pale paste is an undercooked paste. The potato needs the full time to soften.
- 8
Rest before eating
Let the pastes rest on the pan for ten minutes before serving. The filling is molten from the oven and needs to settle. Eat them out of hand, the way the miners did, or on a plate with a green salsa on the side. They travel well, they reheat well, and they are why pastes became the food of Hidalgo. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Chef Tips
- •Use both manteca de cerdo and butter in the dough. All butter gives you a French-style pastry that does not taste like a paste. All lard gives you a paste that is too tender to hold the filling. Half and half is how it is done in Real del Monte and that is not a compromise, that is the recipe.
- •Dice the filling by hand. A food processor turns the beef into paste and the potato into mush and you lose the textural contrast that defines this dish. If that sounds like too much work, this is not your dish yet. Come back when you have an afternoon.
- •Pastes freeze beautifully before baking. Assemble, freeze on the sheet pan, then bag them up. Bake directly from frozen at 400F for about an hour. This is how pastes have always traveled with working people. They are made-ahead food by design.
Advance Preparation
- •The dough can be made one day ahead and refrigerated, or frozen for up to one month. Bring to cool room temperature for ten minutes before rolling.
- •The filling can be diced and mixed one day ahead and refrigerated. Do not freeze the raw filling, the potato will turn gray.
- •Assembled unbaked pastes freeze for up to two months. Freeze on a sheet pan until solid, then bag. Bake directly from frozen, adding 15 minutes to the baking time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 140g)
Calories
475 calories
Total Fat
31 g
Saturated Fat
13 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
17 g
Cholesterol
56 mg
Sodium
290 mg
Total Carbohydrates
37 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
1 g
Protein
11 g
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