For Love of Empanadas

There is no clear answer as to exactly where empanadas originate, some say Spain, some Argentina, but who doesn’t love them?  They come in all different sizes, and varieties, and they work as well as an appetizer for a party, or a neat, hand held dinner pie. They’re generally filled with some kind of meat mixture, but you could use almost anything from ground chicken to an all veggie mixture.  I recall a party my mom had when I was a kid, and she served them as a hot hors d’oeuvre.  We kids got the leftovers, and they were different from anything I’d had before, sweet, a little spicy, and bursting with currants, and ground beef.

Like dumplings, savory hand pies are ubiquitous in many cultures.  Think knishes, egg or spring rolls, samosas, Cornish pasties, or empanadas…  They are easy to eat, and neatly portable!  Like a lot of food that has traversed the globe this type of pastry was the food of the working people; lots of dough (cheap) little meat (expensive). You could make some for tea-time today, and have lunch or breakfast to go tomorrow. Sadly they’ve devolved into things like “Hot Pockets” which are filled with numerous mystery ingredients.  

Many recipes include raisins, green olives, and chopped hard-boiled eggs, some are meant to be fried, and some baked.  The fried ones get a super-crispy bubbled surface.  The baked, brushed with egg wash come out golden and shiny.  They are a bit time consuming to make, but as with most things worth the effort.  They also freeze well, either baked or not, and then you can have your own hot pocket, made with significantly fewer than the seventy three items in the Nestle’s version which they boast are made with real ingredients.

There are thousands of recipes online if you Google empanadas, which I did, though I wanted to do something a bit different.  I used a traditional dough recipe, but went for more of a Philly Cheese-steak flavor profile in preparation for some ‘game day’ snacks. Mine are nice and cheesy without the addition of any ‘whiz’ which I managed by combining grated cheddar and neufchatel cheese (similar to cream cheese, but creamier)  I used grass-fed ground beef from Philly CowShare, and though I didn’t master the nice twisted crimp you see on many empanadas, they held together just fine.

Philly Cheesesteak Empanadas

2014-01-16 16:34:20

A savory hand held pie, baked to a golden brown.

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Dough Ingredients

1. • 3 cups all-purpose flour
2. • ¼ teaspoon salt
3. • 8 oz unsalted butter (2 sticks), chilled and cut into small pieces
4. • 1 egg
5. • 4-5 TBS water

Filling

1. • 1 lb ground grass fed beef
2. • ½ lg onion diced fine
3. • ½ cup green stuffed olives, chopped
4. • ½ tsp salt
5. • ½ tsp smoked paprika
6. • ½ tsp chili powder
7. • ½ tsp garlic powder
8. • 4 oz cheddar, grated
9. • 4 oz Neufchatel cheese

Instructions

1. 1. Mix the flour and salt in a food processor.
2. 2. Add the butter, egg and water until a clumpy dough forms.
3. 3. Form a ball, flatten slightly, and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
4. Brown beef, over medium-high heat using a potato masher to break it up, when meat is almost done add onion and all seasonings
5. Reduce heat to low, and
6. Add olives and cheeses
7. Mix well until cheeses are melted and incorporated into mixture
8. Put beef mixture into a bowl and refrigerate for ½ hour
9. 1. Roll dough out to 1/8” thick, and cut into 3”rounds (you can make them bigger or smaller depending on your preference, and larger one makes a great hand pie)
10. 2. Make an egg wash with 1 egg and 2 TBL of water
11. 3. Brush each round with egg wash, and fill with beef filling, fold in half, and press edges together, crimping to make a decorative edge,
12. 4. When empanadas are assembled, brush them with remaining egg wash, and refrigerate for twenty minutes before baking
13. 5. Bake at 375°F for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown

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