Empanadas

It was in Central America that I first discovered the empanada. I can’t remember where I was exactly but I think it was somewhere in Costa Rica. I needed a quick snack and there they were: rows and rows of small servings of beef or chicken perfectly contained in puff pastry. I took my first bite, and ooh, what was this? A rasin? And next, a piece of egg? An olive? All these sweet and savory surprises! I couldn’t handle it. I went to town. From that day forward, any opportunity to put back an empanada was not wasted. Sometimes they came deep fried, other times in a non-pastry dough. They were always cheap, though, and always delicious. The day we nearly missed a bus more because I had to have one (or three) it was confirmed: I had gone loco for empanadas.

Following the trip, I thought about empanadas a lot. Sausage rolls didn’t cut it. Samosas were the right idea but the wrong flavors. I was delighted to discover that there was an empanada restaurant in Toronto, Jumbo Empanadas, but true to its name, these empanadas really were jumbo and subsequently costly. The thrifty baker in me said I could probably make a dozen of these for the price of one or two! So that’s what I did.

About.com has a number of different dough recipes so I tried a few and finally settled on a pretty basic slightly sweet one. I use butter in place of shortening and it works just fine.

You can pretty much fill an empanada with anything you want. This week I went with a basic ground beef. I chopped half an onion and two cloves of garlic and then added a hit of cayenne, chilli powder and lots of ground black pepper.

I start by making the dough because it has to rest for an hour before it’s rolled out. I then cook the beef or whatever other filling I am using. I hard boil one or two eggs and set out my olives and rasins. You don’t have to include the egg, olive or rasins but I think of an empanada as a tiny piñata and the little treats inside are my favorite part.

When the filling is done I let it cool down and begin rolling out my dough. You can make them pretty much any size. When I want to make them bigger, I cut around a bowl. When I want teeny tiny appetizer sized ones I’ll use a glass or a pastry round. No matter the size, when they’re ready to bake they’ll need about 25 to 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

Spoon out the filling, fold over the circle and begin braiding the edge. I use a little water to help seal it. If you have a lot of filling and are at risk for over flow you can also skip the braid and seal it using water and a fork. Adding an egg wash will make your empanadas look pretty and professional.

I didn’t do a very good job on the braid or the egg wash this week. But were they any less delicious? If you said yes, you’d be wrong.

The leftover empanadas are easy to take for lunch the next day.  If you’re like us and get through them all in a day or two it’s not even necessary to put them in the fridge. We keep ours in a sealed container on the counter.