SAUCE MAGAZINE
Posted On: 05/01/2012
Looking for a Mexican restaurant? Ask vegetarians. Their GPS will find one like chips find salsa. Mexican restaurants, no matter how plain or fancy, promise a variety of meat-free options well beyond the ubiquitous iceberg wedge. Plus, margaritas are vegan.
As a home cook, I heart Mexican cuisine because the ingredients are inexpensive and easy to prepare. But how many taco nights can you have? (Not a rhetorical question – I’m really asking. Is two per week too many?)
So, in honor of Cinco de Mayo – and in hopes of expanding my repertoire beyond cheese quesadillas – I studied up on empanadas.
“Empanada” is Spanish for a pastry stuffed with yumminess. The specific yumminess depends on what’s produced locally. In some parts of the world, you’ll find empanadas filled with beef or eggs. In other parts, street vendors sell sardine or chorizo empanadas. And in warmer regions, sweet empanadas ooze with gooey yams and fruit.
Here in the Midwest, our empanadas usually tout chicken or beef, so I decided to create a vegetarian version. Black beans are the abundant resource in my habitat and would make a substantial filling. My friend Carolyn makes a black bean, raw onion and cilantro salsa that’s so good, I eat the entire thing in a closet so I don’t have to share. Her recipe was a logical starting point.
I used canned black beans like she does, but I sauteed the onion to soften it up. I love fresh cilantro like I love those vegan margaritas, but I thought coriander, cilantro’s hardy sibling, would stand up to the oven heat. And to make it look like a beef empanada, I pulsed everything in a food processor.
A little research on Empanada Pastries of the World revealed the same “whatever we always have on hand” philosophy. Cornmeal, plantain flour and rice flour are all used. However, I prefer white flour in my baked goods. (Please don’t judge.) And my freezer is stocked with homemade puff pastry, so I tried that.
Now, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to make your own puff pastry. It’s surprisingly easy and delicious and will hang out in the freezer for a month, but if prepared puff pastry is what you have, that works too.
The realization that I could take virtually any combination of flavors, throw them in a pastry and call it an empanada hit me like a ton of bricks. From now on, Leftover Night would go by its new, sexy stage name: Empanada Fiesta Night.
I experimented with the mystery contents of my Tupperware containers. Some produced clear winners. Baked sweet potatoes and chickpeas made a wonderful filling, as did dried apricots, dried cherries and leeks. Others were less successful. Pureed shrimp was just nasty. And the peanut butter-and-jelly empanada oozed all over the pan.
It’s easy to invent delicious empanadas. Just make sure whatever filling you use is already cooked, since your oven time is only long enough to puff the pastry. And pay attention to texture. My shrimp empanada became edible when I chopped up the shrimp instead of mushing it in the processor. Buen provecho!
INGREDIENTS
7 oz. water
1 tsp. salt
13 oz. (about 3 cups) all-purpose flour
13 oz. (1 pack plus 10 Tbsp.) unsalted European butter, softened and divided
PREPARATION
• Pour the water into a small bowl and refrigerate.
• Sift the salt and flour together into a large bowl. Set aside.
• Place 10 ounces of soft butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap. Use your hands and a rolling pin to form the butter into a 5-inch square. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
• Take the remaining 3 ounces of softened butter and pinch it into the flour-salt mixture in the bowl. When the texture resembles cornmeal, dig a well in the center and add the refrigerated water.
• Using your hands, mix the ingredients until they form a coarse dough ball.
• Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, and knead it a few times until smooth. Wrap the ball tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
• When the butter and dough have reached the same level of firmness, remove both from the refrigerator.
• Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough ball into a square on a lightly floured surface. Place the butter square in the center of the dough square, then rotate the butter 45 degrees so that the four corners of the dough are exposed.
• Fold the dough corners over the butter, encasing the butter entirely in a dough “envelope.” Use a pastry brush to dust away any loose flour on the dough as you work.
• Using a rolling pin, gently roll the “envelope” into a rectangle.
• Fold the rectangle into thirds lengthwise, like a business letter. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
• Once the dough is completely cold, remove from the refrigerator and unwrap. Then, starting from the short end, roll into a rectangle again.
• Fold the dough into thirds lengthwise, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate a second time. Continue to fold, wrap and refrigerate three more times, for a total of five cycles.
• After the fifth refrigeration, your dough is ready to use. Defrost the frozen dough in the refrigerator before using.
Note: The dough will keep in the refrigerator up to 3 days and in the freezer for 1 month.
