Empanadas al Juanco

I went over to Gabriel and Juan Carlos's house today to learn to make empanadas from Juanco (Juan Carlos). Juan learned from his mom and makes the completely from scratch. It took us several beers a few trips to the corner market and a couple of hours but we made about 30 pino (onion and beef) empanadas. I told Juanco and Gabriel that Lacey and I would have an empanada bake off when I got back, so get ready!










The hardest part is making the dough, which you can see Juanco and I doing. To make the pastry ou need:

Pastry:

• 1.5 kg flour


• 2 tbsps baking powder (optional, Juanco was out)


• 1 liter warm milk


• 3 tablespons salt

For the Filling:

• 3 tablespoons oregano


• 1.5 pounds beef, chopped into very small pieces


• 5 large onions


• 4-5 tsp. cooking oil


• 3 tsp. each of alino completedo, oregano, and paprika


• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped


• salt to taste


• 5 hardboiled eggs


• 25 black olives


• 50 raisins(soaked)

First, make the filling by sauteeing the onions under low hear for about 15 minutes, until they are translucent, Next add the spices, salt and meat and cook under low heat for 20 minutes. Set aside to cool. While the meat is simmering you can go ahead and slice the shelled eggs into wedges.

To make the pastry, mix the flour and salt and then add the warm milk until you have a tough pliable dough. Warning, this part seems to be an art and there was a fair amount of milke left over. Once the pastry is ready, you can tear off piece and roll them as thinly as possible. Keep the dough you are not currently working under a towel to keep it warm and pliable.

To make an empanada spoon out the filling (with as little liquid as possible) along with 1 piece of egg; 2 rasins and 1 olive. By this point David and his boyfriend Claudio had come by so David showed me his method for folding empanads in addition to Juanco's

• Juanco's method (two at a time): Fold over the pastry and push it together to form two empanadas. Cut away the excess with a pastry wheel, fold over the crusts and press the edges together firmly by hand. This style is suitable for frying or baking.

or

• David's method: Carefully paint the rim of each piece of pastry with water, then fold the empty hemisphere over to enclose the filling, press the rim down. You should now have a semicircular turnover: paint the outer rim with water and fold it down again towards the center of the empanada. These can only be baked.

Bake the empanadas in a preheated oven at 400 degrees until the empanadas are nicely browned (about 20 minutes). Just before placing them in the oven, paint them with egg yolk to darken and crispen the crust.

Serve hot from the oven and eat with a napkin.

We also made pebre, a classic Chilean salsa that has cilantro, meaning that I love it.

Ingredients
fresh cilantro leaves
1 onion
2 tomatoes
1/4 cup water
fresh lemon juice (1 lemon)
1 teaspoon powdered hot red pepper
salt to taste
3 garlic cloves , minced

And here you can see a finished product. Towards the end of the evening Gabriel's niece and her boyfriend, who are both Swedish, came by and we talked for a while, mostly in Spanish. Then David gave me a ride home and I was asleep 5 minutes later