The empanada is a popular finger food eaten with different fillings throughout South America. Empanada comes from the Spanish empanar, which translates to English as ‘breaded’ or something wrapped in bread. Depending on where you are geographically, you will find empanadas with a wide variety of fillings such as beef, chicken, fish, ham and cheeses, and even dolce (sweet) empanadas.
Empanada pastry is basically puff pastry and when made with a tasty filling can be a wonderful choice for finger food.
Chile is renowned for its polo or chicken empanadas. Chile being a thin sliver of a country doesn’t have the beef grazing pampas of Argentina. Their geography is more suited to raising chickens. Here is the recipe.
Ingredients (makes 30-40 bite-sized empanadas)
- 500 g packet of frozen puff pastry (defrost in the fridge overnight)
- 500 g of chicken thigh mince
- 1 carrot, peeled and diced super fine
- 1 celery stick, peeled and diced super fine
- 1 medium onion, diced fine
- 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced fine
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed or diced fine
- Zest of one lemon
- Good pinch of finely chopped thyme
- 1 chilli pepper, seeds removed and diced fine
- 1 small bunch of parsley, diced fine, no stems
- Olive oil
- 1 cup chicken stock
- Salt and pepper
- Flour for dusting
- Egg for egg wash
Method
Making the filling for the empanada is a bit like making soffritto: you add each ingredient to the fry pan in a correct and methodical order.
Preheat a frypan to medium heat; add a dash of olive oil and a knob of butter or margarine to the pan. When hot, add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes until it becomes transparent, ensuring it doesn’t burn. Add the garlic and chilli pepper and cook for a minute, then add the carrot, celery, thyme and lemon zest, a pinch of salt and pepper and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the minced chicken, mix well, season with salt and pepper then add the chicken stock and mix well. Add the apple and parsley towards the end and turn off once the stock has evaporated and the chicken looks cooked. Tip onto a paper-lined oven tray, spread evenly thin and place in fridge to cool.
While the filling is cooling take the pastry from the fridge, dust the bench top with flour and dust the pastry lightly. Using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry to a thickness of 2–3 mm. Using a pastry cutter, ring number four or five from the centre or a larger one if you want to make empanadas “moi grande”, cut out the pastry discs and place them on a tray and place them in the fridge. Leftover cuttings can be collected and rolled out to make additional empanadas.
Whisk one egg, add little cold water and pass the egg mixture through a sieve to get it nice and smooth for brushing.
Remove the pastry discs from the fridge after cooling for at least half an hour. Use a teaspoon to put the right amount of cooled filling that will allow you to fold and seal the edge using a fork. Poke the fork into the top to make little holes to allow pressure to escape during cooking and brush with egg mixture.
Place on a tray covered with oven paper. Bake for 15 minutes, or until brown, in a preheated 180°C oven.
As the Jewish New Year is coming up, starting on the evening of 25 September, I wish you all a wonderful, healthy, happy and prosperous coming year.
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