Woo-Hoo! Last night I made Empanadas which concludes my year long goal of cooking one new dish a month for 12 months! I'm already thinking up a twist on this goal for 2011, maybe one dish/meal from every continent? Maybe finding and using one ingredient I've never used before (like celery root, or some of those asian vegetables).
Before I could get started cooking I had to clean our little, dirty, dirty, kitchen. Not just because it's easier to cook with all the counter tops clean, but also because I didn't want old crusted splatters on the stove in my photos.
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| Our little kitchen. While I think most people want more counter space, we really could use more. |
I mentioned in my last
goal 101 post that the dish was inspired by a Food Network show, so I looked to the Food Network website for the recipe. I found it, but it made mention that they had scaled it down from a bulk recipe and none of their chefs had tried it in the proportions written. After conferring with Joy of Cooking, and Bobby Flay's recipe for Empanada dough I called Ian to get his professional opinion on the amount of salt and sugar to use. We agreed that where it said "tablespoon" I should replace it with "teaspoon" and it would work fine.
Everybody was together for a nice picture before getting beat up into dough. I love my little pink prep bowls. They have lines inside so each one can give you two measurements. The smallest is an 1/8 cup to the halfway line and 1/4 filled all the way up.
I like the sifted mountain of flour as evidenced by it getting two photos by itself. It just looks so neat! You can also notice the difference in color as the top photo uses a flash and the next one did not. I tried taking pictures without a flash, but our kitchen is too dim and they kept coming out blurry.
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| I was so tickled by the flour mountain, my amazement was a child-like awe. You should find something to make you wonder like a kid again. |
I was nervous about making the dough and perhaps in a chicken/egg scenario I then forgot to add the egg to the food processor. I hear
Ina Garten's gentle voice saying, "You don't want to blend it too long or it wouldn't be flaky." I also heard the recipe's voice saying "it should turn into a ball." "Why isn't this working?!" I huffed to myself. Well, because I didn't have the stuff in there to hold it all together of course! It came out fine in the end, afterall, the little pies were headed to the deep fryer.
The recipe called for Sofrito and Adobo yet did not give recipes for them so it was back to the computer as the dough was chilling in the fridge. Sofrito I learned can be any number of things. Sweet peppers, cilantro, garlic are the main ingredients and then in any amount you want sort of, maybe? This one says to cook it. This one says just to mash it up in a mocajete. This one says to cook it and add oregano and black pepper, but the recipe has that coming later. Hmm.
I decided to mash it up and then cook it down too. It went into it's own little pan as I sauteed the onions.
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| The mash-it-up portion of the Rachel doesn't know game. |
After the onions were softening in the cast iron over medium high heat, I added my Sofrito and the tomato paste and some red pepper, and oregano, black pepper and salt, and the rest of the cilantro. On the show he used Culantro as well. Ian and I both saw it and said "Where can we get some!?" Still no idea, yet it's on the list of things to try.
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| The peppers and onions etc softening up pre-beef. |
Ian got home just in time to roll out the dough. This was a labor intensive recipe, from start to finish. I was back and forth to the computer deciphering the secret messages of the chef, I was mincing peppers and onions (wearing my old swim goggles, of course), and wondering if that had been enough of such-and-such because the recipe was a little vague. So I was happy Ian showed up willing to roll out the dough instead of going straight to his unwind haven cave.
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During the Bobby Flay Throwdown, the other chef used his flour sifter as the circle cutter for his empanadas and I thought "How clever!" so I did too! |
Load up the top half of the dough circle with the beef mixture, fold up the bottom, pinch the ends together and then roll it in on itself from one side to the other.
We debated between our baby deep fryer and using a pan. Considering the pan we'd need for frying is the cast iron that I had dirty with beef yum, and our little deep fryer already had oil in it, we chose the easier route.
Delightful, golden brown, little hand pies of delicious is what these are! The dough was fine, though I think if that egg had jumped into it sooner they would be better. The beef mixture was flavorful without being too spicy, and if I had remembered to salt it in the pan, it would've had the perfect flavor balance.
The only other thing that would have made these better is if we'd remembered about the Guava sauce on our grocery day and bought Guava paste. I think that fruity sauce would have highlighted the flavors in the empanada and made it a more complete delicious.
It was nothing but smiles though as we ate our little hand pies. Delicious little hand pies. Too much work to add into the rotation, it was just a lot of work. I am keeping the Sofrito idea handy though because it is meant to be used as a base, and it works so well! One "recipe" I found for it online mentioned using an extra ice cube tray to freeze little sofrito cubes for use later. I might hop on that train.
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| Ian was happy as a clam to munch on homemade empanadas! Always encouraging me to go off recipe and always willing to eat the product (as long as there's no -aise). His support and will-eat-anything attitude really made this goal fun and easy to keep coming back to! Thanks Ian. |
That wraps up my new dish goal!
Goal 101 is officially
ACCOMPLISHED!
