Beba’s empanada recipe
Empanada recipe from Beba restaurant — The empanada is a delicious small puff pastry filled with meat, fish, egg, potato or other ingredients, depending on the customs of each region. The empanada is found in traditional Spanish cuisine and in many Latin American countries. Here, you can find delicious ones at Beba, which you can follow on Instagram here.
Beba’s empanadas
Cooking: 20 minutes
Ingredients
For the empanada dough- 500 g all-purpose flour (3 1/2 to 4 cups)
- 100 g pork fat (1/2 cup)
- 15 g salt (1 tablespoon)
- 180 ml water (3/4 cup)
- 500 g ground pork
- 3 medium onions, finely diced
- 2 tbsp. pork fat (or butter) at room temperature
- 4 turns from a pepper grinder
- 12 g paprika
- pinch of dried oregano
- two cloves of garlic, crushed
- 30 ml red wine
- 500 ml broth (chicken or pork)
- 2 russet potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon of cream or yogourt
Method
Empanada dough: make it by hand and work it quickly!- Mix the salt and fat into the flour
- The mixture should look like wet sand
- Add water
- Work the mixture in a bowl until it resembles soft pie dough
- Knead a little until it becomes soft — (Beba restaurant suggests a 3 1/2 minute song for the perfect texture)
- Don’t worry if it’s not super smooth
- Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the fridge
- Melt the fat in a large pot
- Brown the pork
- Add the spices (oregano and paprika), salt, and garlic
- Add your onions — Note that it is very important that the volume of raw meat and onions be the same for the flavour
- Stir and put the lid on the pot
- Once the onions are cooked, the mixture should look like sausage meat cooked with onions
- Add broth and wine
- Add the potatoes
- Cover and cook over low heat
- Watch the liquid reduce
- If the potatoes are not cooked and the filling is a bit dry, add water
- Cool the filling: refrigerator temperature is best for rolling
- Preheat oven to 450 F
- Take the rested dough, ready to be rolled — if it has small pockets of fat all over it, that’s a good sign!
- Stretch and flatten it (+/- 3 mm thick). If you don’t have a rolling pin, you could use an empty wine bottle
- Cut out circles with a biscuit cutter or your cereal bowl
- Take out the filling and fill the small pockets about the size of a third of the dough
- Fold the pockets into half moons
- Fold in the corners so the pockets are airtight
- Brush egg wash over the top of the empanadas
- Place on parchment covered baking sheet
- Bake the empanadas on the top rack of the oven for about 20 minutes, turning halfway through baking
If you’d like to watch a live version of Beba’s empanadas recipe, here it is! Bon appétit!
Beba is a delicious Argentinean-inspired restaurant, and one of our favourites! Behind the project are the two Schor brothers, whom we met at Liverpool House and whose presence explains the almost instantaneous influx of fine food lovers to the small space on Éthel Street in Verdun. A restaurant to discover on your next outing! More info here. Thanks to the Schor brothers for the recipe!
