Empanadas!

Empanadas!

Monday, October 12, 2009

My first attempt at frying and a little fall inspired pocket

Two posts in two days!  You all must think I'm crazy.  I guess I feel like I just owe everyone since I went so long with no posts.  This past Saturday my roommate and I threw a little b-day fiesta for yours truly at our apartment.  As you would expect, I whipped up some tasty empanadas for my guests.  I decided to make one savory kind and one sweet, because having two types of empanadas at my last party was such a hit. 

For the savory empanada I thought I would bring it back to the traditional empanada that really inspired me to get into empanadas. So, I decided to cook up some classic Argentine beef empanadas.  In case you are unfamiliar with the traditional Argentine beef empanadas, let me give you a run down of the plethora of ingredients that go into these little fiesta pockets: ground beef, olive oil, red peppers, yellow peppers, garlic, green onions, tomatoes, olives, parsley, raisins, hard boiled eggs, paprika, cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. BAM!  I know, that sounds like a lot of ingredients, however, they really all come together to create a wonderful little Argentina party in your mouth. As I mentioned in past posts, the dough I purchased was made for frying, but I have been baking them up.  Well, I decided to go all the way and fry up the little pockets for the party.

The night before my party, my good friend, and sous chef, Dawn Marie, came over to help me cook and enjoy a little vino.  We kicked things off by cooking up the ground beef.  I purchased about 2 lbs of lean ground beef and just cooked it up in my handy dandy Calphalon pan, on medium heat.  While the beef was cooking up we started chopping up the other ingredients.

I forgot to mention that I hard boiled 3 eggs prior to cooking up the beef.  It makes things easier to get the eggs done and out of the way, before your stove gets taken over with other pots and pans.  So, back to the veggies. I chopped up the green onions first, while DMarie worked on the red and yellow peppers. You want to make sure to chop up everything pretty small, becuase when everything goes into the empanada you want to get bites with a little bit of everything. Once the green onions were ready, I threw them in one of my other Calphalons with some hot olive oil in it.  When they softened up and turned bright green, we threw in the peppers. I quickly chopped up a few cloves of garlic, and added them in.When those vegetables were soft, it was time to add in the tomatoes. We had chopped up 3 Roma tomatoes to add into the mix.

When the veggies were cooked up and soft it was time to add in the ground beef.  I drained the ground beef of the fat, and then added it into the veggie medley.

 
After adding in the beef, it was time to season it up.  I sprinkled in a hefty amount of cumin and paprika.   To give the dish a little kick I threw in some Cayenne pepper. Then for good measure I tossed in a little Salt and fresh ground pepper. I let the beef and vegetables cook up together and really blend together. After about 7 minutes on medium heat I removed the beef and veggies from the heat.  It was now time for the final touches. DMarie had chopped up some fresh Italian parsley and some green olives stuffed with pimientos, and I had chopped up some golden raisins and the hard boiled eggs. After adding all of those into the beef, the filling was almost ready.

I mixed everything together. Tasted the filling for seasoning. Added a little more cumin and salt.  And there you have it, traditional beef filling done!  Now, all I needed to do was stuff the empandas and fry them up.

 
I waited until the afternoon of the party to put the empanadas together. I wanted to make mini empandas for the party, so I cut the circular dough I had purchased at Giant in half and made little triangle empanadas.   I was having a hard time getting as much beef filling in each empanada as I would like.  I tried out a few different things, and finally discovered a great trick.  I folded over the curved side of the empanada and sealed it.  Then, I would stuff the beef filling into the open side while holding it up.  This really allowed me to get a lot beef in each pocket.  

While I was stuffing the empandas, I started to heat up the oil.  I had planned on just using vegetable oil, but realized when I looked in my cabinet, that I only had a small amount of Canola oil.  So, I used up the vegetable oil I had, and then threw in about half of a bottle of Spanish Olive oil.  I had remembered when I was in Spain that they fried everything up in Olive Oil, so I figured I would be fine. 

Once the pockets were filled, and the oil was hot, I started to fry.  I only put in two empandas at a time. This would make it easy for me to manage, but also would not cool down the oil all that much.  Each set of empandas took about 30 seconds to fry up, super fast!  When I took them out of the oil I placed them on one of my cookie sheets I had lined with paper towels.  This allows for some of the oil to drain out of the empanadas. I also sprinkled the emapnadas with a little salt right when I took them out of the oil.  Frying up the empandas may have been a little messier than baking, however, they turned out to be extremely delicious! Everyone at the party thoroughly enjoyed them, and I had none left at the end of the night!

Now that I've told you all about the beef pockets, lets talk about the sweet empanadas.... It is really starting to feel like fall in DC, and last time I was at Whole Foods, they had pumpkins everywhere.  So, I thought to myself, why not make a pumpkin pie empanada?! I will warn you, I did not go all the way and roast my own pumpkins, I took the easy route and bought pumpkin puré at the store.  Also, I decided to buy puff pastry at the store, as the dough I have been using would have been too heavy for these pockets.

To make the filling, I started with 3-4 tablespoons of unsalted butter.  As you may have been able to guess, I melted the butter in my Calphalon pan.  Once the butter was all melted down, I added in about a cup and a half of brown sugar.

When the brown sugar was melted down into caramel, I added in a can and a half of Pumpkin. At first I freaked out a little because the caramel mixture immediately hardened up in weird chunks right after I added the Pumpkin.  I then realized that the low temperature of the pumpkin likely cooled down the sugar and made the consistency a little strange.  Once the pumpkin heated up, the sugar and butter just blended right in.  As the pumpkin was heating up, I sprinkled in a bit of cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg and the zest of a whole orange.  These spices really remind me of fall, and go beautifully with pumpkin.

This is me, freaking out about the sugar hardening after I added the pumpkin.






DMarie enjoying the spicy pumpkin filling!

Like the beef empandas, I decided to wait until the afternoon of the party to actually put the empanadas together and bake them up. So the next day, I took out the pastry dough and let it thaw for about 40 minutes.  Once it was ready, I rolled out each piece of dough so that it was really thin.  I did not want the dough to overpower the filling. I was able to use one of my handy empanada cutters to cut out the circles for my empanadas.  Because I had let the filling sit in the fridge over night, it set, which made stuffing the empanadas a lot easier, as the filling was not oozing everywhere. 

After the empanadas were all stuffed and ready to be baked, I brushed them with the usual egg wash, and then sprinkled regular sugar and cinnamon on top.  I had preheated the oven to 400 degrees, so they were ready to go in.


They may not look perfect, but hey they are homemade! After about 15 minutes in the oven, the pockets were golden brown and smelled like Thanksgiving.

 
 
The pumpkin pie empanadas turned out to be pretty amazing.  I think I definitely need to make this recipe for my family over the holidays. The dough was light and fluffy, and the filling was sweet yet spicy.  Another great hit at the party.   

I promise to try and not go so long without reporting on my empanada filling adventure.  Until the next pocket!


2 comments:

  1. These empanadas were delicious -- thanks Liz!

    jc

    ReplyDelete
  2. Both of these empanadas were delish! Thanks, Liz!

    ReplyDelete