06 February 2011

Empanadas

Made empanadas for a get-together last night. They were a hit; I think I'll try and make them again some other time now that I got the kinks out. In hopes that you can learn from my mistakes, here is a list of things I forgot to do:
  • Thaw the puff pastry. I'd allow about 20-30 minutes for this.
  • Roll out the pastry before you cut it into 4" squares. Luckily, if you mess up you can just have bigger empanadas, which is not too much of a problem. I don't know if pastry sheets are always folded into thirds, but ours were and each third seemed to roll out to about 4" wide.
  • If you don't have non-stick baking pans, use Pam or something.
  • Don't forget the vegetable oil on top; I think it just makes it brown up nicer, but that is a good thing.
I also didn't use a full 1/4 cup of oil in the filling. I just started with a tablespoon or two and added more as needed to keep the filling saute-ing (and not burning).

I also didn't make the salsa provided in this recipe because I am nervous about fruit salsas. Luckily someone had brought homemade salsa and that was a good thing. (The corners tend not to have much filling so salsa is nice with those bits.