My friend and I are going to try making empanadas this week. I got a recipe for the dough from the 1080 Recipes cookbook but would anyone mind sharing favorite recipes for filling? Also, are there any special tools I will need to cut the dough and seal the empanadas?
JenBoes
Jul 04, 2008 10:48AM
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Sorry nothing to offer.. I'm a big fan of empanadas too and I've always wanted to try making them myself. Thanks for posting this thread :)
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For Mexican style, I usually just use ground pork, garlic, seeded and skinned tomatoes, ancho chiles, onion, cumin, and salt. Cook in the usual way. A masa based dough can be separated into even portions, rolled into balls and formed in a tortilla press. sealing is by pinching between left hand index and thumb and index of right.
For baked Saltena style, I use a dough of flour, butter, eggs, and water and fill with cooked cubed potato, bit of diced hard egg, cubed carrots, diced onion, salt, pepper, sliced black olive, salt, pepper, cumin, chile powder, and whatever else seems right at the time and a bit of thick reduced gravy from cooking the meat. Roll out dough and cut in rounds; crimp with fork or braid.
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Both recipes sound great. I'll let you know how they turn out. I have a tortilla press so I guess I am set . . .
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We call 'em Pasties in these parts. Originated with the Cornish miners who emigrated to this area from Cornwall, England. The Pastie has been around for about 8 hundred years so finding recipes isn't at all difficult.
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My friend from Chile makes delicious seafood empanadas, I'll have to ask her the exact recipe. I believe she just seals the edges with a fork.
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The owners of the Country Flame restaurant in New Orleans were from Cuba and made sweet meat empanadas that were excellent. They moved on from Country Flame to another place in the
Quarter and we don't get there often any more.
Our local Cuban place has one empanada with ground chilis in the masa for the dough with a chicken filling and a second with beef but a plain dough.
But I miss Country Flame's. And they are on my learn to make list.
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Assuming your dough recipe produces something akin to pie dough (if the recipe has lard for the fat, that is a bonus) you will only need a saucer, plate or something near to the size of the circle you wish to cut. You could cut a cardboard circle. Use it as a template, and cut the dough with a knife.
To seal. Dampen the edge with a little water, fold over, and seal with a fork.
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You can put whatever you like into an empanada. Try curry, for example, either veggie style with just potatoes and peas and onions, or with chicken (dark meat is best). Jerk spices work well with chicken or pork fillings. For beef, I just saute with onions, cumin and cayenne
My experiments with seafood have not been particularly successful, but I'm thinking bacalao might work. As for tools, a rolling pin and a fork is all you need if using wheat flour for the dough.
For Colombian style, with masa arepa (pre-cooked corn flour) dough, a tortilla press is essential. And using chicken stock instead of water for the dough really makes a difference.
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I learned to make empanadas in Argentina sixty years ago, outdoors under a grape arbor, taught by our next-door neighbor. The only filling I ever make is the "porteno" or Buenos Aires style: saute ground beef with onion, add a little tomato sauce, season with salt and cumin, and add green olives, raisins, and chopped hard-boiled egg. Every native empanada-maker I know of (both in BA and the States) now buys the dough ready made (rolled into rounds, frozen)---in US look for GOYA brand. Making the dough from scratch, with suet as the fat, takes all day long as the dough is stiff and you have to roll each empanada separately. Brute labor. As for sealing, just paint the edges with egg & water, stick them shut, and flute the edges to keep the filling inside.
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Jeez, for the first time I'd advise focusing on the fun fillings and leaving the thin dough discs to the pros...
-----The nice folks at Goya in the frozen section of your latin market...
They're good...
Fillings?
Sweet corn, Cream of Corn Soup (undiluted), red mild chiles, and juicy dark meat chunks pulled from the carcass of a rotisserie chicken...
Taco meat, cilantro, and mozzarella...
Ham, cheese & pineapple...
Guava jelly and cream cheese...
Turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce!
Chopped Italian sausage, sauce (frozen), and Asiago...
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup empanadas---- served hot with vanilla Ice Cream!
Don't judge me!
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