I find it interesting that neighboring countries can share the same national dish. Researching this further however, it is not that shocking considering Argentina and Chile were both colonized by Spain where Empanada’s originated from. I looked and looked and could not find a substantial difference in how these countries prepare the dish. I was hoping for a drastic difference to highlight the differences in cultures but that was not the case. A difference however is that Empanada’s are not the only national dish in Argentina, Argentina also considers Asado( A preparation much like Barbecue) to be considered a national dish.
Making the Empanada’s was really challenging as I am terrible when dough and stuffing comes into the equation. I find that I never have enough dough, or enough stuffing. I tend to err on the side of more filling, they look ugly but they are tasty as you will see.
It takes three overall steps to making Empanada’s.
- Making the dough
- Preparing the filling
- Assembly
Part 1: Making the Dough
The only deviation I took was substituting butter for lard. Otherwise make the following mixture and let rest to room temperature.
- 2 cups boiling water
- 4 ounces butter
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Combine that with six cups of flour, and knead the dough.Throw it in the fridge for at least an hour.
Part 2: Preparing the filling
Time to get cutting. The first step in cutting the beef into small pieces. This took me forever, if I was you I would just use ground beef but I wanted to be authentic. Adding to the authenticity, I added raisins after seeing that commented on every recipe I consulted.
Look at the beef cook!
Mix with all of the other ingredients(I love Chorizo!) and your filling is prepared.
Part 3: Assembly
This is where I found it most difficult. Like I complained about earlier, I find that I can never get the right ratio of stuffing to dough. I just set out my station and got to work with my girlfriend in assembling these. Her’s were much prettier due to a lack of stuffing while mine where uglier but truthfully more tasty.
Once they are assembled, they are ready to go into the oven to be baked.
All in all, these were excellent but truthfully a little hard to make. My suggestions if you want to make these
- Buy premade Empanada disks
- Use ground beef for the filling
- Grab a partner to help you assemble them.
Everyone enjoyed them however so it was a win overall.
Special thanks to Kaia, for helping me extensively with the meal preparation.
Recipe for the Empanada’s is available here