It comes as no surprise that I love beef. Remember this post when I shared some of our favourite beef dishes? Needless to say when I was invited to be a Canadian Beef Ambassador I was ecstatic! This girl loves her beef and what’s better is the fact that since I wrote that last post I’ve learned that beef isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Beef is a healthy option as part of a well balanced diet and like everything in life, it’s a great source of nutrition in moderation. By the way the Canadian Beef website is a great resource for recipes, nutritional information and everything you would ever want to know about storing beef safely.
This week I was reminiscing about our honeymoon (what’s new right?) and one of the highlights were the empanadas. Ever since we’ve been trying out every single empanada that comes our way. We’ve narrowed it down to the fact that we love the Argentine empanadas and the others.. aeh. Not so much. This week I came up with the perfect dinner style empanada. I’m talking about a giant empanada that I can stuff my face into! The key ingredients in an Argentine empanada are beef and eggs. Well what do you know. Two things my fridge is always stocked with! While this dish is inspired by the Argentine Empanadas, I’ve added garlic everywhere I could and if you’re looking for a traditional recipe…this isn’t it. Though it’s darn delicious with bit of a bite and filled with Canadian beef and egg goodness!
The following recipe makes three extremely large empanadas and while my recipes are usually under 30 minutes, this one needs a little more prep time but still leaves you with plenty of time to feed a Little Monkey, read to her and even plop her down for bed.
Dough
Heat a cup of water, two cloves of finely chopped garlic and 3/4 cup of butter. Once the butter has melted set it aside and let it cool down a bit. To keep the dough fairly healthy I used a cup of whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup of white flour and mixed them with a tablespoon of salt and paprika. Into this I slowly added the garlic, butter, water mixture spoon by spoon. There’s a slightly wet dough at the end of this. Wrap it and toss it in the fridge for atleast 2 hours (see I told you there’s plenty of time to go read to your little munchkin!).
Filling
Boil three eggs and two medium sized potatoes . While waiting for those to be done sauté two finely chopped onions and two garlic cloves and sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. To that add two tablespoons of chilli powder (depending on your preference.. we like it spicy) and a tablespoon of cumin powder. Traditional empanadas use finely chopped beef shoulders but I enjoy the convenience of the big batch lean ground beef so that’s what I used, a pound and a half of it! To ensure the meat stays moist toss in half a small tomato chopped up. Let this cook till the meat is thoroughly cooked and let it cool to room temperature. Remember those eggs and potatoes? Slice the eggs and cube the potatoes. Drain any excess liquid from the meat mixture, add in the eggs, potatoes and a handful of sliced olives… and voila! The filling is ready. Pretty easy right?
If it has been atleast two hours, the dough is good to go! Divvy the big blob of dough into three parts and roll each out to be about 10 inches in diameter. You don’t want the surface to be too thin, a nice cm would ensure a great crust. Place each crust onto a cookie sheet or pizza pan and pile in as much filling as you can. Then fold over the crust and pinch the ends. Pop them into a preheated oven (400 F) for about 30 minutes or until the crust is nice and golden. I like to whip up an egg and mix in some of that excess liquid that was drained from the filling and use it to baste the empanadas four or five times whilst it’s baking.
Enjoy these emapanadas with some hot sauce and a nice glass of Malbec. You can also pair it with a salad but the emapanada is quite filling on it’s own. Got to save room for dessert right?
If you enjoy beef as much as I do, find the Canadian Beef team on Twitter and Facebook and join the #LoveCDNBeef conversation.
Disclaimer : Please note that I have been compensated for this post, but all opinions are my own, as always!
