For quite some time now my granddaughter has been bugging me to make empanadas. Apparently, her friend's grandmother makes the very best ones. Having never made them before, I searched quite a few recipes and did some consultation with my granddaughter about ingredients before I came up with a recipe. They are all pretty similar, varying, it seems, in the vegetables they contained. Some called for red and green peppers, some only onions. My granddaughter, who by the way is quite a foodie, said her friend's grandmother puts green olives in hers. So green olives it was.
I began by making the dough. It is similar to pie crust, flour, shortening, salt, and liquid (some called for chicken stock, some for water, I opted for seltzer). The dough differed from pie crust, in that it had baking powder, an egg, and a little sugar. The dough is made ahead and chilled about half an hour, which gives you time to make the filling, which is relatively easy. Ground beef, spices, a little vinegar, tomato paste, onion, and green olives.
Next you roll the dough, cut the circles, fill, close and fry. Here is my experience with all of this. The dough is rather difficult to roll out. When I first filled them, the recipe said to seal with a fork around the edges. Well, that didn't work; the first one I made opened up as soon as I put it into the hot oil. So, then I wet the edges of the dough with a little water and crimped with the fork. They were delicious. The dough was flaky, filling great and everyone loved them. I even earned a thumbs up from my granddaughter!
My biggest issue was the difficulty of working with the dough and the fact that they were fried. My house has an open floor plan, no way to cut off the kitchen smells from the rest of the house. Besides the fact that I think frying is kind of unhealthy, my house smelled like a fast food joint for days!
I talked to a few people, did a little more research and made a few discoveries. A friend of mine uses prepared pie crust to make her empanadas. Why didn't I think of that! I even had a package in the freezer left from the holidays. A cook book I just received as a gift suggests using puff pastry as the dough. Not a bad idea. Then I read on the internet that Goya, well known purveyor of Hispanic foods makes something called "discos" just for making empanadas! They are in the frozen food section of most grocery stores. Next, I had to try baking them, I just can't handle all that grease and neither can my digestive system.
So today, I set about making empanadas again. I opted not to purchase the discos, because the package said to fry them. Maybe next time, I will experiment with them and try baking them. But since I had pie crust dough in the freezer, I decided to try that. I did not make a new batch of filling because last night I made my nacho casserole and there was leftover, so I decided to use that as the filling.
I have a new appreciation for test kitchens. Usually when I give you a recipe, it is one I have made often and the only "testing" I do is to measure the ingredients, which I usually just throw in by handfuls. This time, I had to experiment with oven temperatures, cooking times and even the dough.
I made them one at a time, the first one didn't cook well, the next was a little burned around the edges, and the third was good, but the dough wasn't pretty. I finally decided on a 400 degree oven and cooked them between 10 and 12 minutes. The addition of an egg wash, made them golden brown and shiny. Next I thought, why not try biscuit dough? So I got out my trusty box of Bisquick and mixed up some biscuit dough. I added a little extra flour, and rolled it thinner than you would for biscuits.Finally, I tried crescent roll dough. I think it's kind of difficult to get all those little triangles to stick together, so I took all of the dough, rolled it into a ball, and then rolled it out. One tube of crescent roll dough made six empanadas. All the dough choices were good, but my taste testers preferred the pie crust. In addition, the pie crust was the easiest to use.
Next, I began to play with the filling. I had leftover ham, so I tried ham, Swiss cheese and a little ranch dressing to which I added a little Dijon mustard. They were great. I also think they would be great with chicken, spinach, Swiss cheese, thyme and a little white sauce made from chicken stock. What about sausage or ham with scrambled eggs for a breakfast empanada? You could made a bunch of these ahead, put them in the freezer and reheat in the oven or microwave. Kind of like those hot pocket things. When you think about it, empanadas are just meat pies, which every culture has in some form or another. I will experiment with those and report back!
By now you must be saying, "Give us the recipe already!" Ok here goes.
Use prepared pie crust dough that comes in the refrigerator section, crescent rolls, or make biscuit dough following the directions on the Bisquick box, or of course, you can make your own biscuit dough. My goal here is to make this quick and easy so you will want to cook it, not make more work for you! You will need two packages of dough to make 12 empanadas.
Filling: Makes enough for about 12 empanadas
1 lb. ground beef--you can probably substitute chicken or turkey
1 small onion finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped, or run through the garlic press
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 tablespoons vinegar - I used red wine, but you can substitute, white wine, apple cider or even rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Depending on the likes of your family you can also add red and/or green peppers or green olives--about a cup of peppers or olives.
Brown the beef, drain any fat and set aside in a bowl. Add olive oil, onions and garlic to the pan and cook over medium heat about 5 minutes or until translucent. Add spices, vinegar and tomato paste. And cook until combined. Add any other vegetables and cook till they are soft. Return beef to the skillet and heat through. At this point you can remove from the heat, cool and freeze so you have a meal ready to go for another night. Or double this recipe and freeze half.
Roll out pie crust on a well floured surface. Roll a little thinner than you would for pie crust. Cut six inch circles for each empanada. I used a small bowl and cut around it with a knife. You can re-roll dough scraps, but they are not as flaky as the first batch. Fill half the circle with filling, leaving about 1/2 to 3/4 inch around the edge. Wet the edge with a little warm water, fold over and crimp the edges with a fork. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Brush all the empanadas with a beaten egg to which you have added two tablespoons of water. Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 -12 minutes.
These can be made ahead and frozen, or just make the filling ahead and freeze. Let me know how you liked them. I am going to experiment with some other fillings and report back. How about making these smaller and using as Super Bowl snacks? Mmmmm, good idea! Now I am off to clean the mess I made in my kitchen.
Happy Cooking!
Carol
a.k.a. Nonnie
