Savoury Saviour! This is one recipe I am going to take time over and enjoy.  It’s nice to finally be free of the sugar for at least one challenge, that isn’t bread related.  I really think that on the next bake off they really need to try and add more savoury items, Baking doesn’t always need to be sweet cakey delights.

With this bake I wanted to put something together that would pack a punch and liven up the tastebuds. One of my favourite types of food is Mexican, I love the freshness of the lime and the bold use of the chilli (even if it can be too hot sometimes).  Last year the boyfriend and I went on our first big holiday to Mexico, and other than getting a stuffy snotty nose half way through, it was brilliant. As the nights are getting longer it seemed only right to remind ourselves of warmer, sunnier weather and lazy days, which is why Empanadas.

It wasn’t until I did a bit of research that found that there are many different version, but also the origin is not actually Mexican but Spanish.  Well they both speak a similar dialect, just on different continents, so I’m sure it’ll be ok to mix this recipe up a bit.

Using Latin American recipe as a base for the bake I started with the pastry.  This one needs to be slightly flaky, but robust, so it can hold the filling without leakage.  To combine the ingredients and make the dough, I have decided to do things a little differently this week.  For ease and the sheer quantity of potential mess I could create, I chose to use a food processor.  Usually I would make this all by hand, but I wanted to see if there would be a big difference with the mixer.

With dry ingredients in the mixer, I thought it would be good to spice things up a bit I  added a little of the hot smoked paprika, that was to be included in the filling, into the pastry too. It was just enough to colour it but not to add flavour. To the flour was added a mixture of butter and the ever healthy lard (that I have left over from a previous bake). After blitzing til it looks like breadcrumbs the eggs and milk are added to bind it all into a yummy, ball of dough, which needs to be chilled in the fridge.

Quality not quantity
The next thing to do was the filling.  The last few times I have used an American recipe some of the measurements have been slightly questionable, but they always seem to work.  This time however, when it comes to the measurements for the spices, they seem ridiculously over generous.

There are 3 main spices in this, hot smoked paprika and chilli powder, both of which need to be 2 tablespoons worth, and ½ tablespoon of cumin.  After seeing the spices measured out it looked a little too much for 500g of beef mince, so I went on instinct and halved it all. I could always add more later, but I would be impossible take it out.

I’ve had to make a few extra substitutions to the filling because I was unable to get everything. Instead of mixing in fresh oregano to the cooked mince, I added dried to the raw mince, and fresh coriander at the end. I thought the coriander would help to make it a little more Mexican!

Inner goodness
The filling was made by softening the onions in melted butter, then adding the raw mince, to which the spices and herbs had been added.  Once the mince is cooked it needed to be left to cool, before adding the chopped spring onions and fresh herbs.  The other components for the filling include green olives and hard boiled eggs.  The eggs are a little odd addition, but I guess it comes from the idea that the pasty is a full meal, and making a little go a long way.

While the beef mince filling was cooling I rolled out the dough.  It was a little tough to roll, maybe I should have added some more milk when blending it. Having said that, when it came to the folding it up around the filling, it felt rubust enough not to burst.I know that technically I should only be making 12 savoury parcels, but I had plenty of filling, maybe too much. Plus I the pastry would certainly be enough for more than 12, so I just went with it and made as many as I could. Thankfully the extras mean that my pack lunches for the week are sorted!

Fill it up!
With the pastries rolled out and singled (for ease) it was time to start filling!  The recipe suggested that the egg and olives are sliced on top, but after trying to fold up the first one like this I decided it would be better just to mix everything up! The tricky thing was the repulgue, or in lamens terms, the edge crimping! It took a few tries to get this right, and then it was through the help of a tutorial online! Eventually after about 5 or 6 pastries I managed to get it looking similar to the empanadas in the pictures but I was certainly in need of practice. I took nearly 40 mins to make over 20 pastries!

Brush ’n’ Bake
After a ridiculous amount of time crimping the pastries they needed to go back in the fridge while the oven heated up. Once the oven was ready the empanadas were brushed with beaten egg and baked for 25-35 minutes.

Something a little extra
Trying to ignore the spicy smells emanating from the oven, I decided to pre-occupy myself by whipping up a little dipping sauce to go with them.  To bring the freshness of Mexico to my pastries I’ve gone with a chimichurri sauce.  It similar to a salsa verde, with I love, just with a little extra kick. The recipe was from the same site as the empanadas, and once again asked for fresh oregano, which I couldn’t find.  Instead of using the dried herb, I’ve gone with coriander, so that it ties in with the filling in the pastry.  The extra kick came from adding a fresh red chilli rather than dried powder and a good squeeze of lime. Voila a punchy, green, zingy sauce to cut through the denseness of the pastries.

Golden parcels of spicy warmth
These were such a breath of fresh of air after all the weeks of cake and sugar! I’m glad I adjusted the spices, cause otherwise I don’t see how you would have tasted the beef. there was a few leakages but overall pastry managed to hold.  They had a nice colour and sheen to them thanks to the eggwash and added spice. The sauce helped to add an extra dimension to them, but they were just as good without it.  These will definitely be making a re-appearence in my house The perfect little nibble for a party, and you can make them in advance and freeze them too. Next I’ll be experimenting with the fillings, maybe cheese and chorizo?