Directions for Pastry Dough:
Mix together flour, curry powder, salt, turmeric and baking powder in a large bowl.

Cut your cold butter lengthwise down the center of the stick. Now cut horizontally in 8 slices so you have 16 cubes. Mix these into flour mixture and cut in with a pastry blender or two forks. Make sure your butter is distributed evenly, but don’t worry about some pieces of butter being bigger than others. The idea is to create a flaky crust and to do this you need those butter cubes to melt into the dough leaving air pockets behind, which is what creates flakiness.

Now slowly stir in the ice water. You will want mixture to come together in one giant ball. You may not need all of the water. You may need more. The right amount is the amount that helps create the ball when you use your hand to push this together into one giant mass! Different flours need different amounts of moisture! Just be careful not to overwork the dough. Once it is together without being to crumbly, wrap it up in plastic wrap and stick it in a very cold place. My cold place was out on the deck where I left it for about 2 hours. You could leave it overnight in the fridge if you prefer.

When ready to use, soften the dough in your hands and divide it into 4 pieces. Now divide those pieces into three, to give you about 12 pieces. Obviously if you want smaller patties, you can make them smaller but we like these meal sized!

Directions for Filling: The key here is to use the type of meat you prefer. Turkey tends to have a lot of moisture so you may need to use more bread crumbs to bind the mixture. Lean beef, chicken and pork most likely require less. Use your judgment. The key is in the seasonings. These seasonings rock! I found it much easier to find a Scotch Bonnet hot sauce than find fresh Scotch Bonnet chilies. Hot sauce is also a lot easier to work with than fresh chilies! Use at your own discretion.

In a large bowl, combine all the filling ingredients through salt and pepper. You can add more salt later if the mixture needs it. I only used a few grinds of pepper because I prefer using the hot sauce.

Using your hands, mix this mixture really well. Knead all the seasonings, onion and garlic well into the meat. Massage well!

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the meat mixture and cook over medium high heat until meat is lightly browned.

Add the hot sauce, rum and bread crumbs. Mix well. Stir in enough water to lightly cover meat. Mix well and bring mixture to a simmer. Cover and simmer until mixture is the consistency of thick chili. You don’t want this soupy and you don’t want it dry. When it is a good spoonable consistency (about 20 minutes), take mixture off of heat and let cool while you roll out the pastry.

I rolled out my pastry into 5-6″ rounds to the thickness of about a 1/4 inch. Using a large serving spoon, place a spoonful over the dough. I covered it very close to the edge. Now pick up as you would a taco and bring edges together. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Continue with rest of dough. It is OK to warm the dough up a bit between your hands. I also roll my dough between two sheets of plastic wrap so I don’t have to worry about using flour. This really is pretty easy.

When all the rounds are filled, use a fork around the edges to crimp. I find the best way to do this is to pull the fork through the top to the bottom rather than just pressing down to seal. Try it and see.

Bake at 400 for about 35 minutes or until the  bottoms are a bit gold. Dough will turn a light yellow and your kitchen will smell like Jamaica as it bakes. Not a bad thing when it is cold outside!