Puff Pastry and Empanadas

Puff Pastry – easier to buy, but where’s the fun in that?

Ingredients

10 oz (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, cold

2 cups all-purpose flour

¾ tsp salt

2/3 cup cold water

Directions

1. Cut 2 sticks of the butter into ¼ inch cubes. Scrape them onto a plate and refrigerate them.
2. Put the flour and salt in a bowl and stir a couple of times to combine. Cut the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter into slivers and add to the bowl. Rub in the butter, squeezing it with your fingertips until the flour and butter are evenly mixed. This only takes a couple of minutes
3. Add the chilled butter cubes and use a rubber spatula to fold them in. (They just need to be evenly covered in flour.)
4. Set aside 2 tbsp. of the measured water and pour the remaining water on the flour and butter mixture. Use the rubber spatula to fold everything together, scraping from the bottom of the bowl, upward. If there are a lot of dry bits of dry flour, sprinkle on the remaining water, 1 tbsp at a time.
5. Scrape the dough from the bowl to a floured work surface and lightly flour the dough. Use your hands to squeeze and shape the dough into a cylinder, and then press down to flatten it into a rectangle.
6. Flour the surface and the dough, and starting at the narrow end of the rectangle farthest from you, use a rolling pin to press the dough firmly in parallel strokes close to each other. If there are sticky pieces of butter on the surface of the dough, seal them with a large pinch of flour, making sure to clean off anything stuck to the rolling pin before continuing.
7. Press the dough once along the width; it should now be a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Once again, flour under and on top of the dough and roll the dough away and back toward you in the length and once in the width, without rolling over the ends in the same direction, to make a rectangle about 18 inches long and 8 inches wide.
8. Fold the two 8-inch ends of the dough in toward the middle of the rectangle, leaving a 1-inch space in the middle. Fold the bottom up to the top to form 4 layers of dough. Reposition the dough so that the folded edge that resembles the spine of a book is on your left.
9. Repeat steps 6, 7 & 8.
10. Repeat steps 6, 7 & 8 again.
11. Wrap the dough and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours to firm up and rest its elasticity before attempting to use it.

Rolling the Dough

1. Flour the work surface and place the chilled puff pastry on it. Flour the dough. Press the dough in parallel and successive firm strokes with a rolling pin in both directions, until it is somewhat more malleable. Repeat dusting the surface and the dough with pinches of flour.
2. Roll back and forth away and back toward you without rolling over the ends.
3. To roll in the other direction, move the piece of dough 90˚ and repeat step 2.
4. Slide the dough to a cookie sheet and cover loosely with plastic wrap.
5. Chill the dough until firm for easier cutting and pastry.

Mmm baked empanadas!

Ground Beef Empanadas – This is the filling I used.

Ingredients

2 small Yukon Gold potatoes

½ large white or yellow onion – peeled and coarsely chopped

1 small red or green bell pepper – coarsely chopped

3 large cloves of garlic - crushed, peeled, and coarsely chopped

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1 lb lean ground beef

¾ cup tomato puree

¾ cup water

½ tsp salt

1 tsp distilled white vinegar

¼ teaspoon hot chili powder (I used more, not sure how much)

Directions

1. Roll the dough into two twelve inch squares. Stack them on a cookie sheet and refrigerate until you are ready to form the empanadas.
2. Put the potatoes in a small saucepan and cover them with water. Bring to a boil over medium heat and boil for a minute. Slide the pan off the heat and leave the potatoes in the water until you need to add them to the filling.
3. Put the onion, bell pepper and garlic in a food processor and pulse to chop fine, but not puree.
4. Put the oil in a wide saucepan and add the vegetables. Cook over medium heat until they start to sizzle, then decrease to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and beginning to turn golden, about 20 minutes. Stir in the cumin and cook stirring, for about 30 seconds.
5. Add the ground beef and use a wooden spoon to mash it into the vegetables continuously jabbing the spoon downward into the meat so that it cooks in separate grains and not clumps. Cook for about 5 minutes.
6. Add the tomato puree, water, salt, vinegar and stir them in. Bring to a boil, and then regulate the heat so that the mixture simmers actively for about 10 minutes.
7. Peel and cut the potatoes into ½ inch dice. Add the potatoes and chili powder to the pan and stir. Simmer until the potatoes are tender and most of the liquid has boiled off. 15-20 minutes
8. Cool the filling completely. When you’re ready to bake, set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 400˚F.
9. Cut each piece of chilled dough into 6-inch disks refrigerating them again as you cut them.
10. Place one of the disks on a floured surface and sprinkle lightly with flour roll over once towards and once away to make a 7½-8 inch oval. Brush some water on the edge of the oval closest to you and place 3 tbsp of the filling on it. Fold the bottom half of the oval to join the top edge and transfer to the pan. Use your fingers to press the two layers of dough firmly together.
11. Use the point of a paring knife to cut a 1 inch vent hole in each empanada over the thickest part of the filling. 
12. Bake until the empanadas are deep golden and the filling is bubbling slightly, about 20 minutes.
13. Cool for about 5 minutes before serving on a platter.

They may not look delicious in this picture,
 but they are!

Topping for Empanadas – This wasn’t in the recipe, but I thought they would be better with a little embellishment.

Ingredients

Colby Jack cheese, shredded

Chili Powder

Pepper

Salt

Sprinkle the various ingredients on top of the empanadas before baking them, or before re-heating them at 350˚F for about 10 minutes.