Perfect for Kids – Beef Dinosaurs Recipe

Preparation: 35 minutes | Cooking: 15 minutes | Serves: 6

This simple recipe is perfect for dinners, lunches or parties (for kids, that is). The recipe already contains carrot; however, you could sneak in extra veggies if you grate them finely!

Ingredients

• 400g beef mince
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, grated
• 1 medium potato, grated
• 400g jar of tomato pasta sauce
• 1 cup water or beef stock
• 500g packet ready-rolled puff pastry sheets (3 sheets), thawed
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• ¼ cup sesame seeds
• Tomato sauce, to serve

Method

1. Put beef mince in a bowl and mix in a little oil. Heat a large fry pan until hot. Crumble in half of the mince. Brown the mince and break up any lumps with a fork. Remove first batch, reheat pan and cook remaining mince. Return first batch of mince to frypan.
2. Add the onion, carrot and potato. Cook and stir for 1 minute. Add the tomato pasta sauce and the water or stock. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. The mince mixture should be fairly thick. Remove from heat and cool.
3. Preheat oven to 200’C. Working with one pastry sheet at a time, cut each sheet in half vertically and then in half horizontally so you have 4 squares.
4. Place about one-third of a cup of cooled beef mixture onto each square. Fold into triangles. Stand up and pinch edges to resemble dinosaur back, and then pinch one end to resemble dinosaur head. Brush with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
5. Stand dinosaurs upright on a baking tray, lined with baking paper. Cook for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
6. Serve with tomato sauce.

Tips

• It’s important that you cool the beef mixture before adding it to the pastry. This will ensure the pastry becomes puffy, golden brown and crisp.
• You can make the beef mince mixture up to 2 days ahead of time (keep it refrigerated).
• You can thaw the puff pastry in the fridge, or defrost by separating the sheets and laying them on a bench.