These Latin American pastries, filled with seafood, meat, cheese, vegetables or fruit
are wildly popular. Thought to have originated in Spain, where the Empanada Festival
is part of Galician culture, the name comes from
empanar, or to coat with bread. Variations of this form of portable meals
are found in Cornish pasties, Italian calzone, or turnovers.
Though empanadas are most associated with Chile and Argentina, many South American countries have
their own versions. All recipes use a flour shell, some more bread-like than others,
and the fillings vary by chef or locale.
To begin with, the pastry shell is flour, egg, oil, lard or shortening, and a liquid,
either water, broth or milk. Some recipes call for yeast or wheat germ or salt.
All dough is kneaded, rolled out to size, filled as desired, then baked. Some
recipes call for browning the tops under a broiler, then baking, to approximate
the look of an old brick oven. Some cooks prefer to fry their empanadas, and this is
especially tasty with bite-sized cheese empanadas, or empanaditas. Many
cooks, not wishing to make the dough by hand, use prepared pie crusts, or puff
pastry for their empanadas. While tasty, they're not the real thing.
Once cooked, cooled, and securely wrapped, empanadas can be frozen, although in my
house there are never enough left over to freeze. These two
Empanada recipes are ones I grew up with.
Empanadas can be cocktail or appetizer sized, filled with cheese. They can be plate sized, filled
with a meat and vegetable mix for a main dish, or smaller, filled with fruit for
dessert.
Check out one of these recipes, or share your favorite recipe, via the forum.
Argentina
Empanadas Criollas has
recipes for sweet and savory or vegetarian empanadas, plus a number of dough recipes, has many recipes and variations, plus some tongue in cheek eating instructions:
¿Cómo se comen las empanadas salteñas?
Meat Empanadas
using frozen shells from an Hispanic food market and provides a source.
Bolivia
Empanadas y Salteñas recipes
include regional variations from Tucuman, Chuiquisaca, Lacayote and others.
Brazil
Saiba como fazer empanadas de carne . You'll need to read Portuguese to
read this version of an Argentine empanada.
Empanadas De Camarao shrimp and hearts of palm in these beer dough empanadas
Chile
Empanadas Chilenas.
This recipes calls for a glass of wine: half for the cook, half for the dough.
Great Grandma Silva's Chilean Empanadas call for round steak or rump steak instead
of ground beef in the filling.
Paraguay
Empanadas recipe
calls for oil and milk in the dough, and a filling of the chef's choice.
Empanadas Paraguayas
with ají rojo, spicy red pepper.
International
Potato & Beef Empanadas
Spinach Empanadas
Pork Empanadas
Granada Turkey Empanada
Note: There is no tilde over the n (ñ), so the word is pronunced ehm-pa-nah-das, not ehm-pah-nyah-das.
