In A Nutshell

It's empanada season again! These were adapted from Food & Wine magazine. Crazy good! We made both small ones and large and doubled the recipe; there was a bit of filling left over (which we just ate). Serve with Malbec or beer. Dough : 2 eggs, beaten lightly 1 t white vinegar 1/4 cup dry white wine 2 cups flour 1 t salt 1 T sugar 1 stick cold, unsalted butter, diced  In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, salt and butter until it looks like coarse meal. Combine the eggs, vinegar and wine and drizzle over the flour mixture; pulse until just combined; knead the dough a couple of times just to get it to come together- don't manhandle it!  Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour. Filling : 1/2 lb ground beef 1 T veg oil 1/2 onion, diced 1 garlic clove, minced 1/2 red pepper, small diced 1 medium plum tomato, diced 1 T tomato paste 2 T white wine 1 t ground annatto (achiote) 1 packet Goya Sazón con Cilantro y Achiote (i...

Empanada fever rages on..... This is adapted from Tyler Florence, made by my daughter Leksa, who is now officially the Queen of Empanadas. For the filling : 1 small potato, peeled and sliced (about 1/4 lb or so- it's not too important) 1/2 lb chorizo, casing removed (we used 2 links of chicken chorizo from Whole Foods) 1/2 small onion, diced 1 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 t cumin pinch of oregano 1/2 cup chicken broth 1/4 cup sliced green olives 1/2 cup golden raisins Cook the potatoes in salted water for about 15-20 minutes until tender. Drain and return to the pan, breaking up the potatoes with a wooden spoon into smaller chunks. Meanwhile, cook the chorizo in a pan until brown and crispy. Add the onion, cumin and garlic and cook for 5 minutes.  Pour in the broth and simmer for 3 minutes. Add the potatoes, olives and raisins and toss together. Season with salt and pepper to taste (you may not need additional salt because chorizo tends to be pretty salty). Let the fill...

I am CRAZY for empanadas; they are, in my opinion, one of the world's most perfect foods-- delicious fillings wrapped in flaky pastry. When we went to visit my daughter Leksa, who was studying in Argentina for a year, we ate empanadas constantly and they were beyond dreamy. We have tried (unsuccessfully) many recipes, foisting inferior empanadas on our poor family at every gathering this summer, and have finally hit on pure deliciousness.  We tried two different doughs and both were delicious; Leksa made a dough similar to a pie dough which is more difficult to work with but slightly more flaky and tender and I made a dough that was definitely easier to make-- we both concur that while the pie crust type dough is better tasting, the other dough is a close second.  So here we begin our empanada odyssey... The  flaky dough that Leksa prepared is from Smitten Kitchen ; she didn't change anything about the recipe except that she rolled out the dough to about 1/8" t...