The thirteenth recipe that I made from Bake! by Nick Malgieri was Chicken Empanadas, found on pages 54-55. The Quick Puff Pastry recipe is found on page 50. These were fun (although I am the first to admit my puff pastry dough skills need a lot of fine tuning) and they were a big hit with the guys.
I used left over chicken from a rotisserie chicken so that was why I chose to make the chicken ones over the ground beef ones that I originally intended to make (the recipes in the book are identical except for the choice of meat). I made the filling and parked it in the refrigerator, the dough was already in progress, and then later in the day I formed the Empanadas to bake in the oven for dinner.
It was all rather easy (and would be even easier if you used purchased puff pastry which I am inclined to do for the time factor alone in something like this where the fine art of puff pastry is sort of lost on guys who just see these as meat pies to be eaten in a manly manner, i.e. without pausing to admire or appreciate the fine art of puff pastry and the work/time involved).
Ingredient list for the Empanadas: chicken (or you can use ground beef), potatoes, onion, bell pepper, garlic, olive oil, cumin, tomato puree, water, salt, white vinegar, capers, pimiento-stuffed green olives, and hot chili powder. The ingredient list for the puff pastry: butter, flour, salt, and water.
I baked them for the time specified and that seemed to be a correct as everything was nice and hot and nicely browned, but my edges got a little too brown...I think the camera shows them a little more brown than they actually were, but they were browner than I would have liked. Not sure how to correct that, but it didn't really matter in the long run as Matt and Mark really enjoyed them and would like to have them again soon. Definitely a repeat.
Abby and Andrea also baked these, so click on their names and see lovely Empandas with no dark edges. And Phyl made three different kinds!
