Empanada Dough

Dough makes me nervous.  The thought of rolling out a flour mixture that would eventually turn into a flaky and crispy crust used to seem impossible in my eyes.  Other people seem to share the same sentiment.  Tell your friends you stewed beef for 5 hours and they probably won’t bat an eyelash, but tell them that you later took that beef and put it inside your homemade dough then their eyes will begin to twitch.  You made your own dough? Tossing a bunch of broth and beef into a pan is a lot less daunting than kneading and rolling your own dough.  Luckily my sudden obsession with playing with flour has taught me quite a lot.

Who doesn’t love food wrapped in a flaky outer shell?  Nothing better frankly.  Every culture has their version of this culinary delight.  Indians fry up samosas.  Jamaicans fry up beef patties.  Italian Americans eat calzones and stromboli.  Not to mention pierogis, dumplings, and egg rolls.  The list goes on and on.  Even the ever mysterious frozen hot pockets are essentially something edible (maybe) encased in a pocket of dough.  Lesson learned.  If you fill dough with meat or cheese people will eat it!  Think of how good it tastes when you buy the dough and imagine about how much better it will taste when you make it fresh at home.

In Spain our family orders empanada from the local bakery.  You can either have them make the whole thing, or drop off your filling and the baker will bake it with his dough.  The usual choices in Spain are beef, chicken, cod, or tuna mixed with the obligatory onions, peppers, and pimenton.  Whereas other Spanish countries use small half moon shaped pieces of dough, Spanish empanada is shaped more like a large pizza, but it can also be shaped into a large rectangle.  During the feasts of Galicia people search for empanada as their late night food to help soak up the alcohol.  In NYC I’m so used to craving pizza at the end of the night, but empanada makes for a nice change.  Truly prepared people ordered the empanada with the baker the day before, in order to have it ready early the next morning before they return home from the feast.  Now that is dedication.

This particular recipe makes a crispy and flaky crust, crispy because I rolled it thin, and flaky because of the amount of butter.  The more butter you add, the flakier the crust will be, but don’t go overboard.  You don’t want empanada pastries.  Save the butter for your tarte au pomme or croissants.

Empanada Dough Recipe

Adapted from Epicurious.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter
1 large egg
1/3 cup ice water
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

Blend together the flour (2 cups), salt, and butter using a blender such as the one below.  You could also blend it yourself, however the blender makes the process a whole lot easier.  Blend well until you see lumps of butter (pea size) throughout the mixture.  You don’t want to blend TOO MUCH.  In a separate bowl beat together the egg, water, and vinegar.  Now add the butter and flour mixture to the bowl and mix well.  The mixture be very soft and sticky.  Now add the 1/2 cup of flour leftover.

Take the dough and knead over a floured surface.  When you knead the dough make sure to use the heel of your hands in order to knead it well.  Now take the dough and chill it for at least 1 hour.  Keep the dough covered with plastic wrap.

After you chill the dough bring it back out and cut it in half and put one half to the side.  Roll out the dough to a thin rectangle (larger than the size you would like you empanada to be).  Set this aside.  Now take out the other half of the dough and roll it out into a thin rectangle similar to the other one you made.  Put the dough on top of a flat pan.

Put your filling in the middle of the dough in the shape of a rectangle, while leaving lots of room along the edges.  Put the other piece of dough and place it on top of the filling, matching the ends to the bottom rectangle of dough.  At this point your dough will prob look a little uneven.  Cut the top and bottom pieces of the empanada together into a more even rectangle (making sure that you leave enough room in order to make the crust).  Now you will have a more even rectangle.

To make the crust, fold over the two pieces of dough and pinch it between your fingers.  Do the same around all of the empanada.  When you are finished, you can top off the dough by brushing raw egg on it, which will give it a nice color when you bake it.

Tagged as: dough, empanada