Internet Chef Turns A Loaf Of Bread, Canned Tuna, And A Few Kitchen Staples Into Crispy Hand Pies

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Tuna fish sandwiches are a lunchtime staple for many, but they can become a bit rote. While it's easy enough to upgrade a tuna fish sandwich with the addition of roasted tomatoes or fancy bread, they often involve ingredients you'll need to shop for. Instead, one cook on YouTube with the handle YummyKitchenTV demonstrated a fun, low-cost approach to changing up this basic dish: deep-fried hand pies. With just slices of bread, canned tuna, and a few other ingredients, you can craft crispy, savory snacks in a few minutes.

The technique is a scaled-down version of most any fried turnover, empanada, or pastie. Rather than stuffing pastry crust with individual meat and veggie portions, you're using a loaf of ordinary bread with the crusts sliced off as your wrapper. You can dice the crusts and include them as part of your filling, or save them to make homemade croutons in the microwave.

Make your favorite tuna salad sandwich filling, perhaps with mayo, seasonings, and a little onion and celery, adding the diced bread crusts if desired. To make these makeshift empanadas, you'll top each slice of bread with a tablespoon or so of filling and a sprinkle of grated cheese, with enough room to fold the bread over to create a dumpling. Crimping the edges with a fork gives a tighter seal and classic bit of decoration. Wetting the inside edges of the bread, either with water or reserved liquid from the canned tuna, also helps make a tighter seal. And the recipe benefits from dipping your hand pie first in an egg wash, then in panko or bread crumbs for extra crunch and texture before dropping them in a pan with hot oil.

As with regular tuna fish sandwiches, you can easily customize this recipe depending on what you have on hand or prefer. You can add chopped bell pepper, pimento, or cooked bacon, blend in mustard or sriracha, or change up the cheese (mozzarella will add plenty of stretch when you tear open a pie. Serve two or three hand pies per person with a dipping sauce perfect for grilled cheese that also will work with these treats, such as a spicy mayo blend or Bachan's Japanese barbecue sauce.

You may find this trick takes a little trial-and-error to nail down. Ultra-fresh, basic white bread works best to help prevent cracking and splitting. One trick that works well is to press or roll the bread flat, turning it into something more closely approximating pastry dough. Press the edges closed with your fingers first, before crimping it with a fork, as the bread may be too fragile on its own to stand up to crimping. Finally, these pies turn golden within seconds. Monitor the temperature of your oil to ensure it's at or just above 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Because the ingredients are already cooked, all you're looking to do is heat the ingredients, melt the cheese, and get a bit of color and crispness on the outside.