Empanadas!

Empanadas!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It's not really a business presentation with fresh fried empanadas!

This week is a crazy week in business school.  Last year the administration decided to switch from a semester system over to a 7-week module system.  Lucky for me, this is week 8, finals week. In my entrepreneurship class, rather than having a final exam, we have an 8 minute presentations, or pitches, for a new business idea.  My team has elected to pitch "What's in your pocket?", a cross cultural empanada cafe, market and catering service. Because of the increased popularity of Argentine food and wine, we saw the opportunity to connect the people of DC with Buenos Aires through empanadas. Additionally, we recognized that every culture has their own form of stuffed dough, or pockets.  Thus, empanadas would allow us to bring the world together one pocket at a time....catchy, I know...

Our presentation is tomorrow afternoon, and as we were preparing our power-point deck today, I thought to myself, what better way to bring our business idea to life, than to actually make some "pockets" and hand them out to our audience?!  So, silly me committed to making empanadas for 50 people, all the while I am in the midst of writing 4 papers, preparing for the presentation and studying for a final exam in business law (and no, the law genes did not get passed down from my father to me).

This afternoon after writing and editing 2 of my four papers,  in the 2 hours I had free before my International Marketing class, I decided to make my empanada filling. I wanted to keep things simple and easy.  So, I decided to go with the traditional spinach empanada, or empanada de verduras, as they are known in Argentina.  I dashed over to Whole Foods to buy my frozen chopped spinach and yellow onion, since I did not have them on hand.  When I walked into the store I noticed their large display of mushrooms.  I thought to myself, "now mushrooms would be a great addition to this traditional pocket, and would show how are business idea is to put our own twist on the traditional."  I picked up an 8 oz.  package of sliced baby bella mushrooms, grabbed my onion, tasted the cheese they had on display and finally grabbed my bag of frozen spinach. 

After paying, I hopped on my bike and rushed home to get things going.  First thing I did was make my bechamel sauce.  As I described in an earlier post, this sauce is quite simple and delicious.  All you do is melt 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a small sauce pan.  Once it is melted stir in 2 tablespoons of flour.  Last, add in about a cup of whole milk or cream, and whisk until smooth. I quickly made my sauce, and then moved on to the veggies.  I chopped up half of a yellow onion and started sauteing it in a generous amount of olive oil.  Next I added in 2 chopped cloves of garlic.  As those were cooking up I gave about half of the package of mushrooms a rough chop, and then added them in. 

While the onions, mushrooms and garlic were sauteing, I drained the chopped spinach. Basically I just ran hot water over the spinach, in a colander, and once the spinach was thawed, I drained as much water out of it as I could.  After the spinach was drained to my liking, I added it into the pan with the other vegetables. I stirred in the spinach and let it heat up.  Next, I folded in my bechamel sauce that I had set aside earlier.  When everything was blended together, I sprinkled in my spices.  The spices are key to this dish.  After salting the mixture, I then added in a hefty amount of white pepper and a generous amount of ground nutmeg.  These two spices really highlight the flavors of the spinach, and the mushrooms for that matter.  The nutmeg adds a delightful nuttiness to the dish. Once I was more than satisfied with the taste I took it off the heat and transferred it to a Tupperware.  It is much easier to stuff the empanadas when this filling is chilled.

I have not assembled the actual empanadas yet, as the presentation is tomorrow and I want them to be as fresh as possible.  Tomorrow I will be assembling 50+ half size empanadas.  I have decided to fry these puppies up, because I still have a few packages of the dough made for frying, and the fried beef empanadas were such a hit.  Additionally, the fried empanadas cook up much quicker, which leaves me with more time to study! 

Hopefully these little pockets will get me an A in entrepreneurship.....

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Fall root vegetable pockets are the perfect cure for a rainy day

This past weekend the weather in DC has been super icky.  The temperature dropped down into the low 40's and it has been raining non-stop since Friday.  It was one of those weekends when you just want to stay in and watch movies all weekend.  Unfortunately, I have a ton of school work so I had to fit in a little business law in between HBO flicks.  I did manage to venture out of the house on Saturday to hit up my favorite store, Whole Foods. Thanks to the generous whole foods gift card from my Aunt Aty and Uncle Howard, this week's empanadas are sponsored by them! I wasn't sure what type of empanada I was going to make when I walked into the store, but almost immediately after walking into the produce section an idea came to me.

One of my favorite things about the fall and winter are all of the wonderful root vegetables.  I was wondering the aisles and I passed by the most adorable bunch of whole carrots.  I was quickly reminded of this wonderful roasted carrots recipe from the Barefoot Contessa.  Very simple, just roasted carrots or parsnips with a little olive oil, salt and fresh dill.   I decided I would do a little twist on this recipe.  Also, since I was not having anyone over to enjoy my pockets, I wanted to make a dish I could eat during the week on its own. So, I grabbed the carrots, a bag of little red potatoes, a few shallots, a bunch of fresh dill, and what I thought were parsnips.  When I was done with my shopping I headed to the register to check out.  As I was watching the checkout girl ring everything up, I inspected my bunch of "parsnips".  I soon realized I had not grabbed parsnips, but Daikon.  This would just not work.  I have never even cooked with Daikon!  So I sprinted back over to produce while my other items were being scanned, returned the Daikon and perused the aisle for parsnips.  Unfortunately, after asking a produce man, it was made clear that they were out of parsnips.  Carrots, potatoes and shallots would have to do!

After unloading my other groceries, I decided to get going on my empanadas.  First thing I needed to do was chop up my veggies so I could roast them up. 

After chopping everything up in to 1/2 inch pieces, I put everything on one of my fabulous baking sheets. I tossed everything with a generous amount of olive oil, some fresh ground sea salt, fresh ground pepper and about half of a bunch of dill finely chopped up. 

 
I had preheated the oven to 375 while I was chopping up the veggies. I put them in the oven and after about 30 minutes I gave them a good toss.  I then cranked up the heat to 400 so that the veggies would get nice and caramelized.   I waited about 20 more minutes, and I took the vegetables out of the oven to cool a bit.  My apartment smelled of wonderful roasted vegetables, and I was definitely ready to give them a taste.


The vegetables were out of this world. Salty, caramelized, bold flavors, perfect to stuff into some dough pockets!  As I mentioned, I didnt have anyone coming over, so I decided to just make one empanada.  While at Whole Foods I found some new organic empanada dough for baking in the freezer aisle. I took one circle out of the freezer to defrost.  Once it was defrosted, and the veggies had cooled down a bit, I put my empanada together. Since I was only making one empanada, I didnt want to waste a whole egg on an egg wash.  Instead I brushed the top of the empanada with some of the flavorful oil from the vegetables.  After about 15 minutes in the oven at 375 my pocket was ready.  I took one bite and it was pretty tasty.  Then I decided to try it with some of my balsamic reduction I had in the fridge.  Mission accomplished. Delicious, hearty, rainy day empanada done!


Pics of my Pie, as Promised

I am shocked to say that I made my pumpkin pie on Tuesday, and I still have a lot of it left!  The pie turned out great, unfortunately I have not been able to have anyone over to enjoy it.  So, lets consider it a good thing that it's not all gone, or else that would have meant that I ate it all!  Here are some pics from my pie making experience.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Empanadas are just mini pies, aren't they?

Today I decided to put my leftover pumpkin filling to good use.  I wasnt sure what I was going to do with all of my leftovers, but while I was at Whole Foods today they had graham cracker pie crusts on sale and I thought, wow, I can make a pumpkin pie!  As I mentioned in my last post, it is really starting to feel like fall here in Washington, so what better way to spend my day than making a fresh pumpkin pie.  So, I purchased my pie crust, along with some cinnamon scented pine cones, and made my way home.

When I got home, I preheated the oven to 375, and googled pumpkin pie recipes.  I have never made a pumpkin pie, so I just wanted some references to what goes into a traditional pie besides the spicy pumpkin puré.  I figured out that I should add a few eggs and some cream to my filling.  Well, knowing me I didnt just want to do the traditional thang, and I had some leftover chopped pecans in my cupboard, so I decided to work those in some how.  I decided to coat the bottom of my graham cracker crust with the chopped pecans.  After layering pecans on the bottom of the crust, I beat 3 eggs in a large bowl.  The I added in my leftover pumpkin filling (about 2 cups).  Lastly I poured in about 1/2 a cup of cream.  I blended it all together, and it was time to pour it into the crust.  I had made the perfect amount for one pie!  I decided to take things one step further and sprinkle some more pecans on top of the pie to add a little texture.  Now I am waiting for the pie while it bakes for about 45 minutes.  When it is done I promise to report back, and post some pics. 

Hope everyone is enjoying fall as much as I am!

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!


Sunday, October 11, 2009

Been a long time, but lets talk Indian flare!

First of all, allow me to apologize for depriving my avid readers of posts for the last couple of weeks.  Grad school kicked it into full gear, and my empanada adventure sort of took the back burner.  I have a few empanadas to report on, but lets start with an Indian empanada filling experiment.  I need to start by saying that this filling actually never got turned into a wonderful dough pocket, but I can say that I know from my empanada experiences that this filling would be delightful turned into an empanada.

So lets dive right in.  I was shopping at Trader Joes, and was trying to buy groceries for the week based on a couple of meals I was going to make.  One thing I have learned since being in school, is that it is a great idea to make a large dish on Sunday night, and eat the leftovers for dinner or lunch the rest of the week.  As I was wandering the aisles I spotted the TJ's cooked lentils.  I thought to myself, "I could make a wonderful lentil salad with tomatoes, parsley, maybe some goat cheese and a few other treats."  I grabbed the lentils and then wandered around in search of the other salad ingredients.

Like my blog, I sort of let my recipe go, and never found the time to make my lentil salad. A week or so later I decided it was time to do something with the lentils.  I still had most of the salad ingredients, but was no longer in the mood for such a dish.  I opened up my cabinet and found a can of garbanzos.  Immediately I remembered this wonderful Indian garbanzo dish that I used to make.  It was incredibly simple, onions, garlic, tomatoes, garbanzos and some masala seasoning.


I chopped up an onion and garlic and sauteed them in some Spanish Olive Oil.  Then I added in the garbanzos.

Next the tomatoes.


After seasoning the fun melody with salt and pepper, I finally added in the Lentils.

Once everything was in the pan and really cooking I added in the key ingredients, the spices.  No measurements were used, I just kind of felt it out. I sprinkled in a healthy amount of masala seasoning. A key spice in Indian cooking.  Then I added in one of my favorite spices that I use in Mexican cooking, but I thought would go well in this dish, Cumin.  Added in some more salt and pepper and just let everything simmer for 10-15 minutes.


After it was all done, the lentils were truly delightful, a real Indian treat. I never was able to put them into an empanada, but I just know they would be a great filling for future empanadas. I ate the lentils for the rest of the week.  Sometimes on their own, other days over Quinoa.  I would definitely recommend this recipe for empanadas, a side dish to accompany some Tandori Chicken, or just a fun treat over rice.