Empanadas...getting better

"Daddy don't live in that New York city no more. He don't celebrate Sunday on a Saturday night no more..."-Steely Dan

I have failed on numerous occasions to successfully make a decent empanada or something at least approximating the ones they have in Buenos Aires.



This time I got a little closer.
The reason? The dough...I think.

3 cups flour
1 stick of butter (8 tblspns)
2 egg yolks
2 tblspns white wine vinegar
cold water
teaspoon course salt

Combine the butter and flour in a bowl with your fingers. Add the egg yolks and vinegar. Begin adding water a bit at the time until you have a reasonably firm dough. Refrigerate until ready to use.

I used chicken for the filling simply because that is what I had already on hand.
I diced one onion and sauteed it in olive oil.
I cut the chicken tenders (whatever they are) into fairly small chunks and browned them along with the onion.
To this I added about a teaspoon of dried oregano and salt and pepper.
I ground up some walnuts in the coffee grinder and added them as well.

After the chicken was thoroughly cooked, I pulsed it all in the food processor a few times.

Back to the dough. I rolled the dough out to about an eighth of an inch.

I used a can opener to cut the bottom out of a coffee can and used that as my cutter. The diameter was 4 inches.




On the left you can see an empanada with the filling ready to be closed up.

I brushed an egg wash around the edge before I doubled the dough circle together.




I used the tines of a fork to seal the edges together.

I also found that they actually worked a little better by using the rolling pin to roll out the rounds a bit more just before placing the filling on the dough.

Now if I could only figure out how they get those rooster head shaped edges in Buenos Aires.

I baked the empanadas on 375 for about thirty minutes. They came out reasonably flaky and pretty tasty too.

Overall it was a decent effort.

Cooking spirits: Carr, Cabernet, amazing $20 wine.

Cooking music: Steely Dan