Traditional Empanada
The word empanada comes from the Spanish verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread. These delicious little pastries are made by wrapping a round dough pastry in half over a filling of meat, seafood, vegetables or fruit, forming a semicircle. They are baked or fried. Empanadas are a delicious holiday tradition in many New Mexican homes.
Ingredients
- 1 stick Butter
- 1½ cups Flour
- 1 tbsp Baking powder
- ¼ tbsp Cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp Very cold water or milk
- 1 tbsp Oil
- 1 Egg
- 4 ounces Cream cheese at room temperature
- 2 tbsp Ground cinnamon
FILLING INGREDIENTS
- 2 pounds Pork
- ½ tbsp Allspice
- 2 cup Chopped raisins
- 1 tbsp Nutmeg
- 2 cup Applesauce
- 1½ tbsp Cinnamon
- 2 cup Sugar
- 1 cup Piñon nuts or other nuts
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Using a fork, combine the butter and cream cheese. Sift flour over this mixture. Add baking powder, vinegar, and water or milk and combine with fork.
- With generously floured hands, work the dough until you have a smooth, resilient ball, about 3 to 4 minutes. Keep working the flour into the other ingredients until the dough suddenly holds together.
- Flour both the table and your rolling pin. Roll out dough and cut out circles. Oil cookie sheets and place circles on sheets.
- Add 1 heaping teaspoon of filling, and carefully fold over and crimp with fork, moistening the edge with egg glaze. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
FILLING DIRECTIONS
- Boil pork. When thoroughly cooked, put in food processor until meat is shredded. Add raisins, applesauce, sugar, nuts and spices. Mix well and proceed with directions in empanada pastry recipe.
Video
Notes
An empanada is a sort of baked or fried turnover including pastry and filling, common in Southern European, Latin American, Indonesian, and the Philippines cultures. The name comes from the Spanish verb empanar, and interprets as "enbreaded", that is, wrapped or covered in bread.Making homemade empanada dough is not as hard as you might think, especially if you have a food processor. And even if you don’t have one, it is still pretty easy to make by hand because the dough doesn’t need be overworked, and requires minimal kneading.
