Empanadas

ok here is what I came up with for empanadas.


I looked up a basic flour recipe for the dough.


The recipe below if from About.com

Every empanada recipe starts with the dough. Here is a simple empanada dough made with flour, salt, water, egg, vinegar and shortening.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Ingredients:

3 cups flour (plus a little more for kneading)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water
1 egg
1 egg white
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 tablespoons shortening

Preparation:
1. In a bowl, beat the water, egg, egg white and vinegar together. Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together the 3 cups of flour and salt.

3. Cut the shortening into the flour mix with a pastry blender or two butter knives. Make a well in the center of the flour mix and pour the liquid ingredients from the first bowl into the center.

4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients with a fork until it becomes stiff.

5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it just until all the flour is incorporated and the dough is smooth.

6. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, but never more than 24 hours.

Tip: If you want to keep the dough longer than 24 hours, you can freeze it.

Servings: Makes approximately 10 six-inch empanadas.


Here is the filling I came up with.

1/2 tsp butter
1 small diced onion
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 lb ground chicken
3 tsp thyme
1 tsp powdered garlic
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg

add butter onions and chopped garlic to pan. Saute to translucent

add ground chicken and all seasonings and brown.

remove from pan.

Dip

I made this dip for the side but decided it may taste great mixed in the meat so I made half the meat plain and half mixed in with the dip and it was YUMEEE.

1 small jalepeno pepper with seeds diced
1/4 small onion diced
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tsp spicy mustard
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

mix in simmer 5 mins

split mix if you choose to mix it with meat and double the recipe if you want to mix it AND
dip it.

After you take the dough from the fridge, break it into small balls--you can get about 10 if you make larger rounds I made some smaller for Sophia and some larger for me so I got 13. Use the rolling pin to roll them into small round somewhat thin circles.

Spray coolie sheet with olive oil pam.

Put one tsp or so of filling in each , I also added colby jack cheese--which is what I had on hand but a nice gyuere would be nice in this too. I also mix some of the meat with the dip.

Fold over the pocket and as sophia said she made russian skirts on the empandas.

Place them on cookie sheet and use an egg wash to brush over the pockets.

sprinkle thyme over wet pockets and place in oven

bake on 450 for 8 mins then FLIP

bake other side for 3-5 mins for brown color on the other side.

Enjoy!!

YUMEEE

Dawn