Jamaican patties

I've been trying to develop my skill with pastry these last few months. It obviously requires a different set of techniques, but I think I'm getting there. Certainly all that breadmaking has, I think, given me a feel for flour. So here's the latest in a line of attempts at a Jamaican pattie. Makes 8 patties.

Pastry
250g plain flour
30g rice flour
half a tsp turmeric
pinch salt
70g vegetable fat
70g butter
water

I use a little rice flour to give extra crumbliness. I haven't seen this used in any other pattie recipes online. Crumbliness = fragility, though, so if you were making these for carrying on a bike ride, for example, you might want to use all plain flour. You make the pastry as normal and stick in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

Filling
250g minced beef (I used "lean" mince with 10% fat. Probably 20% would be better, for a moister result)
half an onion, finely chopped
1 tbs of finely chopped carrot
half a scotch bonnet pepper, finely chopped
2 tsps of Dunns River curry powder
some thyme
two chopped spring onions (although in this context we should call them scallions)
a little oil

Fry the onion and carrot until soft. Add the beef and brown. Add curry powder, pepper and thyme and cook for a while. Lastly stir in the scallions, salt to taste, and allow to cool. You could have all sorts of variations on this, of course. Dunns River curry powder, although described as hot, isn't.

While it's cooling, get your oven preheated to 180c. Get the pasty out of the fridge and your rolling pin out of the freezer.

Divide the pastry into eight equal pieces, and roll each into a disc of about 15cm diameter. Use a saucer to trim into a perfect circle. Do all the discs in one go, piling them up with a sprinkling of flour to keep them apart. (Previously, I had shaped then filled, then shaped and filled. It gets messy.)

For each disc, put a tablespoon of the meat mixture in the centre. (It's quite surprising how little filling each pattie has.) Brush the rim with water, fold over and crimp and pierce with a fork. Arrange the patties on a greased baking tray and bake for about 20 minutes. Some recipes say you should use an eggwash. That doesn't seem authentic to me, but try if you like.

I don't think I've got the seasoning quite right yet, though. It could do with more cumin, and allspice, perhaps.

But it's nearly there!