Chilean Empanadas - Part II

Well Sharron (on the right with her friend Nica at Las Delicias) was reading my last post and felt bad that there was no picture or recipe so she sent this photo of fried empanadas, taken a while back in a beautiful beach town near Vina del Mar, Chile called Con Con at Las Delicias restaurant where they only serve empanadas, all be it many delicious varieties.

She said it's a shame she didn't get to take a picture of the ones they made because they were so much better looking, but she did include a "sort of" recipe for the recent empanadas. Here's what she wrote....

"As for what we made the other night, here is an approximate recipe for them but it's a little vague. It was mostly instinctual I think. We made about 30 empanadas - I think.

Ingredients: (for the dough)
2 kilos of white flour (about 5 lbs)
200-300 grams of butter (7-10 oz)
about a half litre of boiled water (2 cups)
Salt to taste.

Directions:
1. Put almost all the flour in a big bowl and melt the butter and a couple of spoonfuls of salt in a bowl of hot water and stir.

2. Make a hole in the flour and slowly pour the liquid mixture in and
start mixing it up. This was a labour intensive dough that needed a lot of muscle, seriously. Mauricio divided it into two halves to knead more easily. It was surprisingly wet and dense. When you press it in with your finger and it bounces back pretty easily, it's ready.

3. Then you take smallish balls into your hand and roll them out thin. Like thin as a Kraft single (processed cheese slice). It should be fairly circular.

4. Set aside and sprinkle a little flour on top. You can stack them up.

5. Then you put watever pre-cooked filling, beef, shrimp, veggies, etc., wet the edges with a little cold water on your finger and fold over. Press it
closed and fold over a little edge around the half circle and pinch it into little bumps like a pie crust.

6. Meanwhile, you can be heating up a pot or wok of vegetable oil and
drop the empanadas in when it's boiling. When the edges get a little golden, flip it over. Then enjoy and be careful for squirting hot juices and oils. Ouch.

The classic Chilean empanada filling is "Pino", with ground beef fried up with onions choped very small, one black olive, usually with the pit still in, and a half a hard boiled egg. Some people put in a raisin or two. And you can replace the beef with shredded cooked chicken, also delicious. It can be baked or fried. Apparently, the above recipe doesn't work well for baked emapanadas. Sorry.

I find that shellfish empanadas are better fried. Just my opinion. I've
tasted ones with clams, crabs, muscles, scallops and shrimp, separately and
together and they're all fantastic. "

So that's the real deal from Chile. Enjoy.

Related links: Food and Drink recipes