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TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2022
Grab a handful of Jamaican fl avor
Hand pie features
flaky pastry and
spicy beef filling
By GRETCHEN McKAY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Is there anything more
delightful than a hand pie?
If you’re not sure, these
fl aky pastries — repre-
sentative of a street-food
staple across the Carib-
bean — should win you
over with their sunny,
island fl air. Stuff ed with
ground beef seasoned with
the traditional Jamaican
aromatics of scallions,
garlic, curry powder, all-
spice and chili, they off er
just enough spice to create
some heat, but not so much
that you can’t taste the
fl avors.
The original recipe
paired the beef with a sour
cream pastry crust tinted
yellow with turmeric, but I
thought a shortening-based
hand pie dough would be
easier to work with. And I
was right: Pulsed together
in a food processor, the
dough is not only super
forgiving, making it easy
for even a novice to roll
into circles, but also sturdy
enough to fold and stuff
with fi lling. Plus, it bakes
up tender and fl aky.
If you like a little more
fi re on your lips, add
another habanero or two; if
you desire less, substitute
a less-fi ery Scotch bonnet
pepper. I served the hand
pies warm, with a mango
dipping sauce.
JAMAICAN
BEEF HAND
PIES
For fi lling
1 tablespoon plus 1 cup
water, divided
3/4 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-TNS
Highly spiced Jamaican beef hand pies get a gentle heat from
habanero chili.
1 pound lean ground beef
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
12 scallions, chopped fi ne
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 habanero chile, stemmed,
seeded and minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 teaspoon curry powder
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon pepper
1 slice hearty whi½te sandwich
bread, torn into 1-inch pieces
For dough
4 cups all-purpose fl our
2 teaspoons table salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
8 tablespoons vegetable
shortening, cut into
½ -inch pieces
1 cup vegetable stock or broth
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
5 tablespoons vegetable
oil, divided
½ cup fresh or frozen
mango cubes, thawed
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon fi nely
minced red onion
Juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons water
Make fi lling: Combine 1 ta-
blespoon water, salt and baking
soda in a large bowl. Add beef
and mix until thoroughly com-
bined. Let sit at room tempera-
ture for 10 minutes.
Heat oil in 12-inch nonstick
skillet over medium-high heat
until just smoking. Add beef
mixture and cook, breaking
up meat with wooden spoon,
until beginning to brown 5 to
7 minutes. Add scallions, garlic,
habanero, thyme, curry, allspice
and pepper and cook, stirring
frequently until scallions are
softened, about 3 minutes.
Add bread and remaining
1 cup water and stir to in-
corporate. Bring to boil then
reduce heat to low and simmer,
stirring occasionally, until sauce
thickens and coasts beef, 8 to
10 minutes. Mash beef mixture
with potato masher or fork until
fi ne-textured and bread is fully
incorporated, about 2 minutes.
Transfer to a clean bowl and let
cool completely.
While meat cools, make
dough: Process fl our, salt and
baking powder in food processor
until combined, about 3 seconds.
Add shortening and pulse
until mixture resembles coarse
cornmeal, 6 to 8 pulses, Add
broth and beaten eggs and pulse
until dough just comes together,
about 5 pulses. Transfer dough to
lightly fl oured counter and knead
until dough forms smooth ball,
about 20 seconds,
Divide dough into 16 equal
pieces. With your cupped hand,
form each piece into smooth,
tight ball. (Dough can be covered
and refrigerated for up to 24
hours.)
Adjust oven racks to up-
per-middle and lower-middle
positions, place 1 rimmed baking
sheet on each, and heat oven to
425 degrees.
Working with 1 dough ball at
a time, roll each dough ball on
lightly fl oured surface into 6-inch
circle. (Don’t worry if it’s not per-
fect.) Place a scant ¼ cup meat
fi lling in center of dough round.
Brush edges of dough with water
and fold dough over fi lling. Press
to seal, trim any ragged edges,
and crimp edges with tines of
fork. Pierce top of each hand pie
once with fork. (This allows steam
to escape during baking.)
Drizzle 2 tablespoons oil over
surface of each hot baking sheet,
then return to oven for 2 minutes.
Brush tops of hand pies with
remaining 1 tablespoon oil.
Carefully place half of the
hand pies on each prepared
sheet and bake until golden
brown, 20-25 minutes, switching
and rotating sheets halfway
through baking. Transfer pies to
wire rack and let cool.
Meanwhile, make mango
sauce by pureeing mango,
honey, vinegar, onion, lime
juice and water in blender or
food processor until ingredients
are smooth.
Serve hand pies warm or at
room temperature, with mango
sauce for dipping.
Makes 16 hand pies.
— Adapted from “The Savory
Baker” by America’s Test Kitchen
(Feb. 2022, $35)
Maple glaze adds sweet, tangy fl avor to pork chops
By LINDA GASSENHEIMER
Tribune News Service
Here’s a way to add
fl avor to boneless pork
chops. I fi nd they can easily
become dry when served
without a sauce. This maple
glaze solves that problem
and adds a sweet and tangy
sauce to the dish. You can
make this quick dinner in
one skillet. To speed the
cooking time, the pota-
toes and broccoli are fi rst
cooked in the microwave.
Helpful Hints
• You can use yellow
Yukon Gold potatoes
instead of red potatoes.
THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD — B3
CORNBREAD
Continued from Page B1
Masa harina’s softer
and fi ner texture is pre-
cisely why it’s suited for
making doughs for tor-
tillas and tamales. But it
also serves to make an
even more tender South-
ern-style cornbread when
used in place of coarse
cornmeal. That I was
using locally produced
heirloom masa harina —
from Masienda, located
in West Los Angeles —
surely didn’t hurt; it pro-
duced such a fantastic,
mind-changing fl avor.
At the same time
as this revelation, my
partner and I were bat-
tling — as is our peren-
nial predilection — over
whether to add sugar to
cornbread. I grew up in a
household that didn’t use
it, and our cornbread was
fl atter and had a crunchy
bottom. My partner,
however, grew up with
Jiff y cornbread mix and,
thus, prefers a sweeter,
cakier texture.
If you’re from the
South, you may know
that the sweet-versus-un-
sweet cornbread debate
is drawn almost exclu-
sively along racial lines.
In her award-winning
2017 Charlotte Observer
article “Why does sugar
in cornbread divide races
in the South?,” author
Kathleen Purvis writes:
“Until early in the
20th century, Southern
cornmeal was made with
sweeter white corn and it
was water-ground. When
industrial milling came
along, that changed. The
steel-roller mills used
yellow corn that was har-
vested before it was ripe,
so it had less sugar. They
eliminated the germ so
[the corn] kept longer,
but it had less corn fl avor.
And they ground it fi ner.
You had to add a little
fl our to help it rise and
sugar to add fl avor.”
Purvis goes on to
posit that because this
new yellow cornmeal
was cheaper than that
made with white corn,
“Black cooks who had
little money may have
changed their cornbread
to match the cornmeal
they could aff ord.”
On the opposite end of
the spectrum, when using
masa harina instead of
cornmeal in my corn-
bread, I noticed a dis-
tinct corn-sweetness that
I had never tasted in reg-
ular American cornmeal
before — and I wanted
more of it. So, I indulged
my partner’s wishes
and added a spoonful of
sugar to my next batch
of cornbread, then a
second spoonful the next
• Mix maple syrup, vin-
egar and mustard together.
• Microwave vegetables.
• Make pork and vegeta-
bles in skillet.
Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer
Time: 45 minutes
Yields: Serves 8
This cornbread recipe is pretty
classic, save for the use of
masa harina instead of corn-
meal, which gives the bread
a more tender texture and
corn-forward fl avor. Regular
granulated sugar is used to
sweeten the cornbread, but
feel free to use honey, maple
syrup or even light brown
sugar instead. The amount
called for is not so large that
the alternative sweeteners will
aff ect it dramatically beyond
a slightly darker color once
baked.
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted
butter, melted, plus more
for greasing and serving
106 grams (¾ cup) all-purpose
fl our, plus more for dusting
155 grams (1¼ cups)
masa harina
52 grams (¼ cup)
granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon fi ne sea salt
2 cups whole milk
2 large eggs
1. Heat the oven to 400
degrees. Grease and fl our a
9-inch round or 8-inch square
cake pan with butter and fl our.
2. Meanwhile, whisk
together the fl our, masa
harina, sugar, baking powder
and salt in a large bowl. In
another bowl, whisk together
the melted butter, milk and
eggs until smooth. Pour the
liquid ingredients over the
dry ingredients, and stir until
just combined (do not try to
remove all the lumps from
the batter).
3. Scrape the batter into the
prepared pan and smooth the
top. Place the pan in the oven
and bake until golden brown
at the edges and a toothpick
inserted in the center comes
out clean, about 35 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the
oven and let the cornbread
cool for 10 minutes. Invert the
cornbread and remove it from
the pan or cut into wedges
and serve from the pan. Serve
with more butter melted over
the top of each wedge.
La Grande’s
Shopping List
SKILLET
MAPLE-
GLAZED PORK
CHOPS WITH
POTATOES AND
BROCCOLI
MASA
HARINA
CORNBREAD
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To buy: 1 small bottle
maple syrup, 1 jar Dijon
mustard, 1 small bottle
of apple cider vinegar,
½ pound red potatoes, ¼
pound broccoli fl orets, 2
6-ounce boneless pork
chops
Staples: olive oil, salt and
black peppercorns.
time, and on and on until
I landed at the perfect
amount for my recipe.
The sweetness made
the cornbread taste
corn-ier, just like the
masa harina. And so
what began as a happy
accident produced a
cross-cultural bread that
off ered me a chance to
learn from it the more
I worked on it. In my
often-jaded mind when it
comes to cooking, it was
refreshing to have my
previously held notions
of my most nostalgic
food get broken apart and
built back up even better
than before.
Certified Master Arborist
Linda Gassenheimer-TNS
Skillet maple-glazed pork chops with potatoes and broccoli.
¼ cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
½ pound red potatoes
¼ pound broccoli fl orets, cut in
half if large (about 1 ½ cups)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 6-ounce boneless pork chops
Salt and freshly ground
black pepper
Mix the maple syrup, apple
cider vinegar and mustard
together in a small bowl and set
aside. Wash potatoes do not peel
and cut into ½- to 1-inch pieces.
Place in a microwave-safe bowl
and add the broccoli fl orets. Mi-
crowave on high 4 to 5 minutes
or until the potatoes are tender.
Heat oil in a large nonstick
skillet over medium-high heat.
Add the pork chops, potatoes
and broccoli. Saute 4 minutes,
stirring vegetables as they cook.
Turn the pork over and continue
to stir the potatoes and broccoli.
Saute 3 to 4 minutes. A meat
thermometer should read 145
degrees Fahrenheit. Sprinkle
with salt and pepper to taste.
Divide the pork and vegetables
between two dinner plates. Add
the maple syrup sauce to the
skillet and stir to warm through,
about 1 minute. Spoon the sauce
over the pork.
Yield 2 servings.
Per serving: 478 calories (38%
Last Minute
Dormant Pruning
and Spring Tree
Cleanup.
from fat), 12.4 g fat (2.4 g saturat-
ed, 5.0 g monounsaturated), 96
mg cholesterol, 45.1 g protein,
49.7 g carbohydrates, 3.1 g fi ber,
226 mg sodium.
Linda Gassenheimer is the
author of over 30 cookbooks,
including her newest, “The 12-
Week Diabetes Cookbook.” Listen
to Linda on www.WDNA.org and
all major podcast sites. Email her
at Linda@DinnerInMinutes.com.
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