Here they are anyway. Thanks Ann for such an awesome guest post. And any of you foodies out there want to contribute (Maureen...Monica...!), send me an email!
Empa-nada!
Hola, foodies. Ann Armstrong here, happy to share with you a recent experiment turned fantastic. After traveling in South America too long ago, I was longing for some empanadas. Not the fried kind you find in Argentina, or the post-bar ones you find in DC (shout out to Julia’s!), but the savory, flaky crust, super cheap ones “al horno,” meaning “from the oven” common to Chile. I took matters into my own hands and, instead of a spring break splurge to Santiago, I read about 20 empanada recipes online, looking for the right one.
As an aside, Chile has great food, until the Chileans cook it (their national dish involves hot dogs). I happened through this South American replica of California’s Central Valley at peak produce season, which convenient for Chile is opposite US produce season and therefore our grape-avocado-apple loving grocery stores stock with Chilean goods during the spring months. So, you’ve probably had Chilean something in your life, but you guessed it—everything tastes better fresh. End of aside.
Unless you are on the coast, the most popular (and delicious) type of empanada is “pino.” Pino empanadas have ground beef, gravy, onions, and to everyone’s surprise, a kalamata olive with the pit still in. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—or cracks your tooth. But this olive risk is too delicious to pass up, and worth the splurge, but pits are mandatory!
Now, before I take you to the pino recipe, I would like to note that the crust and the filling benefits from chilling before baking. This means that you can whip up some dough and refrigerate it at your convenience, up to two days before you experiment on hungry guests. The filling can also be prepared up to two days in advance—but save the empanada assembly until right before you eat.
If you are vegetarian, well, you would go hungry in South America. Even the “vegetariano” dish in Chile has meat within. There are some recipes for vegetarian empanadas out there, but they don’t taste as good and they aren’t the real deal. Megan, consider is a personal challenge to make a veggie-empanada as awesome as pino empanadas.
Enjoy! Son muy delicioso!
Empanada dough is modified from this website:
The Dough:
Ingredients:
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter, not soft
12 tablespoons vegetable shortening, (the recipe calls for this chilled but I didn’t chill it beforehand and things were fine)
1 cup water
2 egg yolks
Preparation:
1. Sift the flour into a bowl. Stir in the salt and the sugar.
2. Blend the butter and shortening into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or with two knives, until fairly well blended.
3. Whisk the egg yolks wiht 3/4 cups water. Stir in the 1/2 cup of water/egg mixture, a little at a time until the dough starts to come together smoothly. Keep kneading the dough, adding more water/egg a little bit at a time as necessary (you made need a few tablespoons extra of water), until the dough is smooth. The dough will seem a bit shaggy until it has thoroughly chilled.
GET YOUR FINGERS IN THERE!
4. Cover the dough with saran wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. (Dough can also be kept overnight (or a couple of days) in the refrigerator) Dough should be soft and smooth, and not elastic - if you poke a hole in it with your finger, the indentation should remain.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and roll into desired thickness.
I aimed for 1/8th an inch, but I don’t use rulers when I cook.
6. Use a circular rimmed object that is about 6 inches in diameter to cut the dough. Re-roll until the dough is too elastic to make thin.
7. If you have leftover dough, sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on for a dessert treat.
Makes enough dough for 10-12 large empanadas.
The Pino Filling, modified from this site:
Ingredients:
2 large onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped fine
1 pound ground beef
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon chile powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 beef bouillon cube, dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons flour
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
kalamata olives, one per empanada – a must
1 egg yolk
Preparation:
1. Cook the onions and garlic in the vegetable oil and butter until softened. Add the ground beef, cumin, chile powder, paprika, beef bouillon, and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Cook the beef, stirring and crumbling the meat, until browned. Add the flour and continue to cook for 5 or 10 minutes more.
I used grass-fed beef and the meat was too lean to produce much gravy within the empanada. Don’t shy away from the fat in this situation.
3. Remove the meat mixture and let cool. The beef mixture will keep up to 2 days in the refrigerator.
4. Shape the empanadas: On a floured surface, shape dough into circles of 6 inch diameters, about 1/4 inch thick. Add 2 tablespoons of the beef filling, an olive, and a slice of hard boiled egg to the middle of the circle.
No joke—that is how they eat ‘em!
5. Brush the edges with water and fold the pastry in half over the filling, to make a semi-circle.
6. Seal the edges by pressing down with your fingers. Brush the sealed edge lightly with water, then turn the edge toward the middle and press with your fingers to seal.
You can make it pretty with a rounded edge or go for efficiency with a fork-pressed edge. Feel your oats.
7. Brush the empanadas with egg yolk.
8. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Give them a few minutes to cool before letting your friends devour them.
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