Becca and Nick
Nick was the mastermind behind these. We also made these a long time ago but never posted them. They were very tasty, but VERY rich. We struggled to finish our leftovers (even Nick, which is rare). Baking them instead of frying might have really helped, our dough just seemed to absorb a lot of oil.
Nick was reminded of South America but didn’t feel he did them justice. Another time!
The dough (flour based) and prepped using our fantastic kitchen aide.
Filling ingredients- we made shrimp and mushroom; tomato, turkey, and cheese; and a variety of pesto and other ingredients.
Ingredients prepped and ready for filling.
Stuffed empenadas! I love the imprinted edges. So fancy!
All fried and a salad on the side.
Phil and Sarah
Didn’t much follow anything here, but loved reading this site. Want to come back and do more like the green plantain ones:
http://laylita.com/recipes/all-about-empanadas/
Dough:
Angela!
From our dear friend Angela:
Dough: 1 stick of butter, 1 package of cream cheese (8 oz), one cup of flour. Mix together until well blended, you might have to add more flour. Once it’s dough, put it in the fridge for at least an hour. This should make about 25 appetizer-sized empanadas.
wow. there are a lot of calories in these.
Also, I didn’t go the sunset super first. WEIRD. I went to Trader Joe’s and Costco at some point?
Empenada Dough Fixins
Mixed dough ready to go in the fridge
Really important to put it in the Fridge…
So I had this plan about doing two different fillings. One was going to be from Angela and another one was going to have kale, mushroom, chive, and goat cheese – it was inspired by the Laylita post – but then I made the Angela filling and there was so much that I didn’t get to the second filling.
From Angela:
Filling: cook a lot of onions + garlic until browned, then add + cook the meat (beef, but really can do anything) and then remove as much fat as you can, storing somewhere near by. (This is very important, bc if you leave too much in, your empanadas will be greasy!). When in doubt, remove more fat than you think you need. If you feel your meat is too dry, you can always add it back in. Season with copious amounts of cumin + paprika. Like take what you think is a normal amount of seasoning and double (or triple it). Add some salt, pepper, soy sauce, some siracha bc #whynot and garlic powder if you want. Once the meat is drained and seasoned, add in: raisins, fresh parsley, chopped eggs, chopped walnuts, peppers (any color, fun to make festive!). If possible, put your filling in the fridge so it gets cold before you fill the empanadas. If not possible, put a small amount in a separate bowl to get you started and put the rest in the fridge (the dough gets hard to handle if it gets warm).
We used turkey instead, because as it turns out Phil doesn’t do well with fat, so turkey is the least fatty meat. Huzzah! I didn’t put in eggs, or nuts, or raisins cause I didn’t feel like it either…
Planned filling ingredients
Making Angela Filling
Then there was the Sauce.
I took inspiration from the Layita basic chimichurri recipe, but then I tweaked some things and added yogurt because creamy is delicious.
Ready for mixing
Yogurt Chimichurri Sauce
Aren’t food processors amazing?
Lastly, the assembly.
From Angela:
Building: Flour the surface, roll out the dough. (Tip: take only a small portion of the dough to roll out and leave the rest in the fridge until you need to use it). Cut out circles w/ a cup (or pastry cutter? idk). fill with the filling, push the ends of the empanada together, then use a fork to leave an imprint on the ends of both sides. put on aluminum foil. Once they’re ready to go in the oven, beat an egg + milk together in a small bowl and brush the tops of the empanadas for a shiny look. Cook at 375 for roughly 15 min, or until they are ready. Enjoy!!!!!
Man, was she right about leaving the dough in the fridge. When it warms up it gets so sticky and hard to work with! Also, I forgot the egg wash at the end, which Phil totally noticed – oops – but doesn’t change the flavor at all.
Rolling
Cutting
Forming
Ready to Bake
Baked
Tada!
Delicious. Like phil said, they would have looked fancier with the egg wash. The chimichurri was nice and tart and had a little spice which was nice. I really want to try some different fillings and sauces too. But yeah success. But oh my goodness are these bad for you. 🙂
Galen and Chloe
Empanadas
Albin and Jocie
We started with a few key ingredients and tools:
Corn Masa
Hand Pie Presses
Ground beef, sliced hard boiled eggs, sliced olives, cheese, beans, and spinach and mushrooms.
We made two types of empanadas fillings. The first is a traditional Argentinian empanada consisting of beef, a piece of hard boiled egg, and a few slices of olives. The second is a vegetarian empanada consisting of pinto beans, Monterey Jack cheese, spinach, and mushrooms.
Here is a step-by-step of the hand pie presses in action. They were trickier to use than you’d think. If the pressed tortilla was not the right consistency or thickness and/or the empanada was stuffed too full of goodies, then the tortilla would split during the pressing process. There were several tortilla “bandaids” applied on the first few, but after a bit we started to get the hang of it.
Fill the hand pressed tortilla…but not too full!
Fold the press.
Pray it doesn’t break.
Tah-dah!
Fry up the corn masa empanadas.
Bake the flour ones.
For the corn masa empanadas, we followed the recipe in the pictures I posted in the Blog a few weeks ago.
We also tried making flour empanadas with Pamela’s gluten free flour. These ones were rolled out, cut like cookies, filled, pressed with a fork, and brushed with egg white.
Fried ones!
Baked ones! (I left them in a touch too long)
Top with yummy salsa.
And Enjoy!
Can you see the inside? This is delicious!
Empanada Mountains!
The best part: We have plenty of leftovers for easy meal nights in the future!
The baked ones were too dry for my liking. Once we get rid of this Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix Flour and we get the right flour for this type of thing, Pamela’s Bread Mix Flour, I would like to try making the flour empanadas again. The corn masa empanadas were spot on though! I will be enjoying more of these this week while Albin is away on his ski trip!
The Weekly Cook-Off 