Empanadas!

Over the summer, Vanessa and I have been blessed to get to know a new friend. This new friend is from Missouri, so he had to leave sometime, and that time is today. A few of us decided to have one last meal together before he left, so I made one of my absolute favorite things.

Empanadas!

These beautiful little guys hail from Argentina, and so does our new friend, so it was all quite fitting.

And delicious.

You start with puff pastry dough.

These are frozen, so start by taking them out of the freezer about 45 minutes before you need them.


While they're dethawing, you can prepare the filling for the empanadas. Empanadas can be filled with just about anything, and I totally want to try some new things. But for now, I used the tried and true ground pork and onion combo.

To die for.

Almost.

For some reason I completely forgot to take pictures of the process, but here's what you do:

Chop up a yellow onion and throw it in a skillet with some shortening (I didn't mention that this is good for you, right? Because it isn't.). Caramelize it a bit and then put it in a bowl. Add 2 tsp of Spanish paprika, 1 tsp of cumin, and 1 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes.

Brown one pound of ground pork in the same skillet, and then add that to the onion mixture. Toss it together, throw in a tablespoon of vinegar, and you're done! Super simple.

Now back to the puff pastry.



It comes with 2 sheets in the package. It's been sitting out like this for 45 minutes, so it's time to unfold it.



I used to cut circles out of this, but that wasted a lot of dough, so now I cut it into 6 rectangles and then trim the edges just a bit to round them out. The empanadas are half-moon shaped, so we want rounded edges.

Flatten them out as much as possible - we want these guys to be as big as we can make them!

Take some water and put a thin layer around the edge of each dough circle. This will help the sides stick together when we fold them.

Grab the filling and heap a couple spoonfuls into one side of the dough circle. Leave room to seal the edges, and make sure there's enough dough to fold over.

The kind of tricky part is putting them together. Once you've folded the top over, you need to pinch the fold shut. You can either use your fingers or a fork.

Gorgeous! There's one more step. It's crucial.

Eggwash.

Crack an egg, stir it up, and brush it on the tops of the empanadas.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes (mine take exactly 22 minutes). They'll be golden, bubbly, and crispy.
I wish my little cell phone camera could do them justice!

You cannot just make these for yourself. That would be selfish. You need to invite several of your favorite people and share the love with them!

Armand, Jelaine, Trey, Natalie, and Stephen were the fun guests of this "last supper", and we all immensely enjoyed this Argentine dish!