Jamaican Beef Patties
Jamaica's yellow-pastry handheld: a turmeric-curry shortcrust folded around a spiced beef filling with allspice, thyme, Scotch bonnet and scallion. Baked golden.
Overview
A handheld pastry that looks like a Cornish pasty but tastes nothing like one. The bright-yellow shell is the giveaway, turmeric and curry powder kneaded into the dough give it both colour and a faint, almost-savoury spiciness on the outside. Inside, the filling is highly seasoned ground beef: allspice, thyme, Scotch bonnet, ginger and scallions cooked into the meat, then loosened with stock and bound at the end with breadcrumbs and small cubes of butter so the filling stays juicy rather than dry-crumbly when it hits the pastry. The shatter on the pastry is the technical marker; flaky, layered, and slightly sweet from the sugar in the dough. Smell out of the oven is curry-powder-toasted butter. Not difficult, but it's a two-component dish (pastry + filling) and each component wants its own time, the dough chills, the filling cools, so plan for 90 minutes minimum. Sold from patty shops across Kingston, Toronto, London, Brooklyn and beyond; the Caribbean diaspora carried the patty further than just about any other Jamaican dish.
Ingredients
Pastry
- 3 ½ cups (~430 g) plain flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon Jamaican curry powder
- 2 tablespoons ground turmeric
- 225 g unsalted butter (grated, cold)
- 240 ml ice cold water
Filling
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 450 g ground beef
- 1 yellow onion (large, finely chopped)
- 1 tablespoon garlic paste
- 1 teaspoon ginger paste
- salt
- pepper
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme (or dried)
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon Jamaican curry powder
- 1-2 Scotch bonnets (deseeded and finely chopped)
- 4 spring onions (chopped)
- 120 ml chicken stock
- ½ cup plain breadcrumbs
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (cubed)
Method
Stage 1 - Pastry
- Whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, curry powder and turmeric.
- Add the grated cold butter; rub in with the fingertips until pea-sized pieces remain.
- Make a well; pour in the ice water; bring together by hand.
- Knead on a clean surface just until cohesive.
- Shape into a ball; wrap; refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
Stage 2 - Filling
- Heat the oil in a wide skillet over medium heat.
- Add the ground beef; brown 5-6 minutes, breaking up.
- Add the onion; cook 3-4 minutes until tender.
- Stir in the garlic paste, ginger paste, thyme, allspice, curry powder, Scotch bonnet and scallions.
- Cook 2-3 minutes until fragrant.
- Pour in the stock; stir 1 minute.
- Mix in the breadcrumbs (they absorb the liquid), then add the cubed butter and stir to melt through.
- The filling should be juicy and moist - never dry.
- Cool completely before assembly.
Stage 3 - Assemble and bake
- Preheat oven to 175°C / 350°F; line a baking sheet with parchment.
- Divide the chilled dough into 8 equal pieces (~140 g each).
- Roll each into a smooth ball, then flatten to a 3 mm disc, 15-18 cm diameter.
- Place 4 tablespoons of filling on one side of each disc.
- Fold the pastry over to a crescent; crimp the edges firmly with a fork.
- Lay on the baking sheet with space between each patty.
- Bake 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp.
- Cool 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Turmeric is the yellow: the colour is iconic. Curry powder balances the bitter edge of pure turmeric.
- Cold butter is the flakiness: grating cold butter and chilling the dough is what gives the flaky shatter.
- Filling must stay moist: dry filling is the most common patty failure. The chicken stock, breadcrumbs and cubed butter at the end keep the texture.
Storage
- Keeps 2 days in an airtight container at room temperature; 5 days refrigerated.
- Freezes 1 month. Reheat from frozen at 165°C / 325°F oven for 20-25 minutes; refrigerated 10-15 minutes.
More like this
Matoke
Beef is browned and simmered with onions, garlic, ginger, tomato and a touch of curry powder. Green, unripe plantains are peeled and added to the pot to steam-cook in the sauce until tender. A loose peanut paste is stirred through near the end for body and richness. The whole dish is one pot and built in stages.
Authentic Jamaican Curry Chicken
Jamaican curry sits in its own corner of the global curry map: heavier on turmeric and allspice than Indian Madras, lighter on cumin, and built on a technique called "burning the curry" that gives the dish its character. The technique is exactly what it sounds like, dry curry powder hits hot oil and is stirred for 30 seconds until it darkens from yellow to deep gold and smells like toasted spice. That move concentrates the flavours and removes any raw edge. The finished stew is bright yellow stained slightly orange, savoury and aromatic rather than searingly hot, with thyme and a whole pierced Scotch bonnet scenting the gravy without flooring it. Smell: bloomed curry powder, allspice, browned chicken fat. Not difficult, but requires confidence in the 30-second bloom (under-do it and the dish is flat; over-do it and you have to start over). A Sunday-dinner staple across Jamaica and the diaspora, served over white rice with the gravy spooned generously over.
Brown Stew Shrimp and Sweet Potato Grits
A Caribbean-Southern crossover that works because both traditions cook in a similar register: butter, peppers, alliums, slow heat, savoury depth. The brown stew base on top of the dish is Jamaican, bell peppers, carrot, Scotch bonnet, ginger, browning sauce, that mahogany-coloured gravy with the unmistakable allspice-and-thyme signature, and the bed underneath is from Lowcountry Charleston, where sweet potato grits enriched with butter, half-and-half and gouda are a long-running modern Southern restaurant standard. The shrimp themselves are quick-cooked and sweet, picking up the brown stew sauce. Two textures stacked: silky-rich grits, brothy stew on top with bite from the diced peppers and carrot. Smell is sweet-onion-and-browning-sugar over the corn-sweet base of the grits. Not difficult but it's two pans running at once, so timing matters; the grits hold on a low warm setting while the shrimp cook quickly. A modern fusion rather than a traditional dish, popularised by Black American chefs in the 2010s exploring the points of overlap between Lowcountry and Caribbean cookery.
Caribbean Chicken Curry Stew
In many Caribbean stew dishes there is an initial step of burning sugar in oil which is used to brown the meat in. This adds a very unique sweetness to the stews from this region and this sweetness paired with the unmistakable flavour (and heat) from the wonderful scotch bonnet chilli is simply astounding. This curry uses curry powder for a fragrant and delicious result that captures the essence of Caribbean cooking.