- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making delicious empanadas.
So let's get started!
First off, we have some prep work to do.
All our veggies need to get chopped into smaller pieces,
starting with mincing three cloves of garlic.
Today we're making some amazing beef empanadas,
but you can use any kind of meat in here.
There are so many different flavor combinations,
and a lot of them vary from place to place.
So empanadas are actually, like,
originally from Spain and Portugal,
but they became popularized throughout Latin America,
and I don't know, they're just delicious little pockets
you can grab and go.
I'm gonna chop two potatoes up,
and once again, I want smaller pieces,
so this is a finer chop than you might be used to.
So you don't want a giant piece
of potato or carrot sticking out.
I'm giving my carrots a halfhearted peel, just a little bit.
They really don't need it, but I can't help myself.
Chop those carrots up, too.
Same goes for the celery, and some of you might be thinking,
"Hmm, celery, hey?"
But it adds a lot of flavor, it cooks down,
you're not gonna have any crunchy texture from it,
and it's really delicious.
And finally, one onion.
I saved it for last so I wouldn't have any tears
while I was doing all the rest of the chopping.
Disregard the knife placement on my head.
Give that onion a nice chop,
and we're gonna be on to the cooking.
Grab a big pan, one tablespoon of olive oil or so.
While my oil heats up over medium heat,
I wanna talk about the meat for these empanadas.
Today I'm using half a pound of ground chuck.
You could use any meat you want in this,
so ground turkey, ground chicken, ground pork.
They all work, even a combination.
Just make sure it's not too lean.
This is an 85/15 mixture,
so if you're using chicken, for example,
make sure it's, like, dark meat included,
because it gets us rubbery
when you're cooking lean meat like that.
My oil is nice and hot.
It's definitely rippling and dancing in the pan.
So I'm gonna add in my beef, the celery,
the potato, the onion, and the carrot,
basically everything except for the garlic.
Grab a wooden spoon.
My cookbook is available for preorder.
There's a link in the description box below.
Grab a copy, grab a copy, grab a copy, grab a copy.
And now we're gonna break the meat up
and cook this for about eight minutes
until the veggies are, you know, softened up
and the meat is browned.
That's important.
And empanada, by the way, literally translates to breaded.
Like, pan is bread in Spanish. Empanada.
So it's a delicious filling held together
with a breaded exterior, and they are so good
when you make them at home.
This is like my ideal combination of meat and veggies,
so it's a lot of veggies with some meat mixed in
for flavor and protein.
And we're gonna be adding all the spices in
after this has cooked a little bit, so don't worry.
It's not gonna be bland.
I can see some of you at home like, "Um, excuse me.
This looks completely bland right now."
It won't be.
So as we cook this down,
you're seeing it looks really glossy,
and what's happening is,
the potatoes are releasing some of their starch,
and they're gonna give you a delicious flavor,
a delicious mouthfeel,
and they're gonna hold things together a little bit
so it doesn't all crumble out when you take a bite.
This is almost ready.
I want my veggies to be softened a little bit
and the meat to be browned through.
Now we're gonna add in our delicious garlic.
Get that all in there.
A tablespoon of tomato paste.
It could be a generous tablespoon.
A teaspoon of cumin.
A teaspoon of chili powder.
1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon.
This adds a wonderful flavor,
and cinnamon's great in savory dishes, too,
so don't be afraid to try it out.
It really goes well with a lot of meats.
And about 1/2 a teaspoon of ground pepper.
Ooh, this smells ah-maze-ing.
Let's give that a stir and cook for about two minutes
so the garlic and the spices really have a chance
to get their full flavor out.
Add your 1/2 cup of peas in,
and now we're gonna cook this for an additional minute.
Then we're gonna take this off heat,
let that cool down a bit, and make our empanada dough.
And if you want, you can transfer this to a bowl
or a plate so it cools down even faster.
I have to ask my mom what her favorite filling is.
Let's see if she answers.
- Hi, John. - Hi! How are you?
- Good, how are you? - Good.
So guess what I just made today?
- (gasps) Empanadas! (John chuckles)
- I'm filming YouTube videos today,
but I wanted to know if there was, like,
a favorite flavor you had for the filling.
- [Mom] I used to cook a lot with fruit,
with apricots and raisins.
- Ooh, that sounds like a delicious combination.
- [Mom] I wish I could taste it.
They look so delicious! - Aw. Thanks, Mom.
Bye, Mom! I love you.
- I love you. - Mwah.
She always answers a FaceTime. (snickers)
Before you start the dough, preheat your oven to 375.
This comes together really quickly,
and you need that oven nice and hot.
Into the bowl of my food processor
I'm adding three cups or 360 grams of all-purpose flour,
1/2 a teaspoon of salt.
I'm just gonna pulse this up to mix the salt in.
You could definitely make this by hand if you want,
but this is an instance where the food processor
is your friend and makes it so easy.
If you're doing it by hand, just whisk it up.
And now I want 3/4 of a cup
or 170 grams of cold unsalted butter.
I'm gonna cut this into small pieces
and then just blend it in.
We wanna give this butter a head start.
That's why we're chopping it into pieces.
If you just tossed giant pieces or blocks of butter in,
it would definitely get over-mixed,
and that would not be flaky and delicious.
Now I'm gonna add the top back on,
and we're gonna pulse this butter
until the mixture is crumbly.
If you were doing this by hand,
you would use a pastry cutter or your hands,
just like when you make pie dough,
and break it up into small pieces.
The way I wrote this recipe,
you have three cups of flour in your food processor,
and that's something most food processors can handle,
but if you wanna make the full 18 empanadas,
you'll make two batches of the dough.
So you can either double it up
if you have a big food processor like me,
or you can freeze the filling and make empanadas later.
The filling will keep for two months
in the freezer really easily.
Just make sure it's an airtight container.
Never reach your hands into a food processor.
Learned that the hard way.
You can see right here we really have a crumbly mixture.
This looks great.
Now we're gonna add one egg and 1/3 cup of water.
This will hold it together.
Egg is also a binding agent, so this is the glue
that'll hold our empanada together.
We're gonna pulse this until a ball of dough forms.
So you can see that we're getting bigger and bigger chunks,
and now we have a big ball of dough on the side.
That lets me know, "I'm ready."
Grab that dough from the food processor.
Now we're gonna cut it in half
and work with half of the dough at a time.
Lightly flour your surface. Very light.
Because you want the dough to be kinda sticky still,
but it shouldn't be too sticky.
The other thing is to grab a rolling pin,
and I happen to have this rolling pin
that has bumpers on it, removable bumpers.
Some of them are 1/4, some of them are 1/8,
and I bought it on vacation, thinking,
"Hm, I'm never gonna use this again."
I just needed a rolling pin because I was baking.
And it's become one of my favorite go-tos,
because I honestly don't know
exactly what 1/8 of an inch is,
but now I do with my rolling pin.
We're gonna roll out half of our dough.
Just keep it moving, because you don't want it
to stick to the surface.
A pastry mat, it makes everything so easy when you're trying
to get dough that comes off the counter and doesn't stick.
It's like if you were ever making a pie, for example,
and it's a summer day, and it just starts melting the dough.
You can lift the whole thing up, pop it into the fridge,
and come back to it in a few minutes.
We want our empanadas to be about six-inch circles,
and I don't have a six-inch cookie cutter.
This is the closest thing I have. Hi.
It is almost five inches.
So you have a couple options.
You can use what you have and roll it out a bit bigger
or find a bowl or something that's six inches
and use that to cut.
I'm gonna try the bowl.
But I'm also gonna add a little bit of flour onto the rim
so it's a bit less sticky.
Lift it off after you cut
just so you know that it won't stick.
And as you can tell,
we definitely need to re-roll the dough,
because you're gonna have a lot of scraps.
(John humming)
Keep cutting and rolling.
We should end up with 12 empanadas or so.
Very awkward cutting with a bowl, but it really works.
My filling is basically on the warm side of room temp,
and now we're going to assemble our empanadas.
Grab your empanada.
I also have a little bit of water here
just in case the dough is not sticking to itself,
but I think it will.
We're gonna add in about two tablespoons
of the filling right in the middle.
You wanna be generous, but you can't overfill them.
Otherwise, they'll burst.
They won't shut.
They'll be so annoying.
Now we're going to seal it shut.
That looks like a giant wonton,
so we're gonna make this into an empanada now
by sealing the edge properly.
I swear, I am not the best at this.
But once you do a couple of them,
you'll get the hang of it,
and you can do the traditional cute fold,
which I'm gonna try,
or you could just use a fork to seal it shut,
and I'll show you both ways.
Now we're gonna close it up, and as we go, we're gonna fold.
So I'm kinda folding and pinching as we go along.
Come to me in the comments
and let me know what your tricks are for this.
I usually do the fork way,
but I want them to be cute for you.
So this is, like, my empanada attempt here.
So if you're doing the fork method, this is so easy.
And you can let me know which way you like better.
Repeat that for the remaining empanadas,
and if you have any extra filling left over,
this is great with some scrambled eggs
in the morning as a hash,
or you can store it in the fridge
and make some more empanadas the next day.
Just whip up some more of the dough.
My empanadas are almost ready to bake,
but I want them to be golden brown and delicious,
so I'm beating one egg in a bowl for an egg wash,
and I'm gonna place these on my baking sheet
and brush them up.
So I'm just gonna seal those edges a little bit more
if they're coming apart, and the egg wash will help.
And brush it all over.
These are gonna go into the oven, 375,
for about 30 to 35 minutes or until they are golden brown.
In you go.
My empanadas are out of the oven.
I wish you could smell this.
When you make these at home, they are so delicious.
They're piping hot right now,
but I'm gonna risk the burn and have one anyways.
That's so delicious, and this shell is mindbogglingly good.
Oh, my God.
It's rich, delicious, crisp, and amazing.
I hope you had a chance to make this recipe,
and if you liked this video, check out my Latin playlist.