Today is Cinco de Mayo. Although most believe Cinco de Mayo to be Mexico's Independence Day (I thought so too!), it actually commemorates the Mexican Army's unlikely victory over French forces at Battle of Puebla on May 5th, 1862. According to Time magazine, the Puebla victory came to symbolize unity and pride for what seemed like a Mexican David defeating a French Goliath, and it helped establish a much-needed sense of national unity and patriotism. Mexico's Independence is in September. (Source: Wikipedia Cinco de Mayo).
There was a small festival sponsored by Corona in my neighborhood. I think America has a very unique power to change other nations' holiday to some sorts of drinking holiday in the U.S. (Of course, we don't need to mention St. Patrick's Day. Ha-ha)
Anyway, after enjoying the festival and seeing the long line in front of a Mexican restaurant, I decide to make a Mexican treat for this weekend.
Empanada is a small pocket pie filled with meats with tomato based filling that originated from Spain and Portugal. You can either bake it or fry it. There is no specific recipe for empanada, so please feel free to fill the pie dough or puff pastry with your favorite mixture. You can make empanada crust with a combination of wheat and masa harina to give it more Mexican flavor... however, if you don't have masa harina at home, just use wheat flour(all-purpose flour).
Empanada - Spanish Meat Pocket Pie
(Yield: 20-22 empanada / Cooking time: 2 hours)
* 1-2 hours of crust resting time is not included.
Ingredients:
| Crust + 450g all-purpose flour + 150g masa harina + 300g unsalted butter + three eggs + 2 Tbsp ice water + 1/2 tsp salt + egg wash | Filling + 1lb lean ground beef (I used 93% lean beef) + 1/4 onion + 2-3 garlic clove + 1 tsp ground cumin + 1 tsp paprika powder + 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder + 120g pitted green olives + 80g pickled pimentos* + 14.5oz whole tomato can + salt and pepper + olive oil + (optional) dried fruit (e.g. apricot or raisin) |
I forgot to take picture of the tomato can.
Procedures:
Crust
! The pictures below is one third of the recipe !
1. Sift flour + masa harina + salt, and cut icy butter into 0.5" cube. Not to make a flour mess in your kitchen, I recommend making the dough over a large parchment paper.
! TIP ! If you have food processor, you can just add the sifted flour mix and cubed butters to the food processor and give them a quick whirl. Then, add an egg and pulse the button a few times to make the dough. The following steps are the traditional way to form the dough with your hands getting dirty!
2-1. The keys to make a good crust are (1) not to overwork the dough* and (2) work fast and over cold surface not to melt the butter**. So, when you mix the butter into the flour, please do not use your hands at first, but mix it roughly with your pastry scraper.
2-2. When the butter is roughly incorporated with the flour, use your fingers to smash the butter pieces into small pieces quickly.
2-3. When the butter pieces are about the size of lentil, make a well.
2-4. Pour one beaten egg in the center of the well.
* The more you work the dough, more gluten is formed, and the gluten will result in hard chewy texture while it should be flaky and crusty.
** The reason for using cold butter and being careful not to melt the butter: If you mix cold butter with flour, the butter doesn't melt into the flour - instead it forms very small butter pieces coated with flour. Those small pieces of butter melt away in baking and leave layers, which gives the flakiness to your crust. However, if you use warm butter, those "layers" are not going to form properly resulting in hard crust.
3. Combine the eggs, ice water and flour mixture+butter. First, start with your finger, incorporate the flour mixture+ butter mixture into the eggs + ice water, then work the dough until it is homogeneous. Again! Be careful not to over work the dough. Add a few drops of ice water if the dough is too dry.
4. After mixing the dough, wrap it with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1-2 hours ("resting"). If you don't use the dough right away, you can freeze the dough up to a few weeks. When you use the frozen dough, please take out the dough from the freezer and let it seat in room temperature for 15-20 minutes. If the dough is still too hard to work with, heat or push down the dough hard with a baking roller to make it softer.
Filling
1. Dice onion, and peel & mince two to three garlic cloves. Chop (or slice thinly) pimentos and green olives as well.
2. Drizzle olive oil in a pan over medium heat, and sweat diced onion until it is translucent. When onion becomes translucent, add minced garlic and sweat until you can smell the garlic. Adjust the heat not to brown the onion or garlic.
3. Increase the heat to medium-high, and add ground beef and season with salt and pepper just a little bit. Since olive and pickled pimentos are salty, please be careful with seasoning. You can always add more salt at the end. Break the ground beef with a wooden spoon while cooking. Cook the beef until the beef browns.
4. Lower the heat again to medium and add spices (cumin, paprika powder and cinnamon powder).
5. Add half of the chopped pimentos and green olives. Crush the canned tomatoes, and add those to the beef mixture with the juice. Mix well.
6. Simmer for 15 minutes over low heat. If you are adding dried fruit, add them before the simmer and let it simmer together with the beef mixture. Make sure the meat mixture is dry but not burned.
7. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Cool the mixture completely to room temperature. Mix the rest of chopped pimentos and green olives.
Assemble empanadas
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
2. Take out the crust dough from the fridge and roll the dough to 1/8" thickness.
3. Cut the rolled dough with 5" round cookie cutter, and place 2 Tbsp of cooled filling on the dough
4. Fold the dough to half moon shape. Seal the empanada by pressing the edges with a fork or by twisting the dough at the edges. Brush the assembled empanada with egg wash.
5. Place the assembled empanada over a sheet pan lined with parchment paper or silicone pad. Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the empanada is golden brown.
Enjoy~
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