A Pampas-Worthy Vegetarian Empanada

Unlike flan, empanadas were most definitely a major part of my upbringing. Of course they were beef, and at least when my grandmother visited, they were sometimes fried instead of baked.

As is always the case with a food so elemental, empanadas were something of a flash point, because everyone had strong opinions about what should be in them. Grandma and Dad both liked a bit of sweetness in theirs, either in the form of raisins or, in Grandma’s case, a sprinkling of sugar over the filling as she took each bite. This was anathema to Mom, me, and my brother. The grown-ups all liked green olives, but my brother and I hated them, and although I liked hard-boiled eggs, baby brother has loathed them since he was pre-verbal and still does. To navigate this minefield of preferences, we ended up defaulting to the simplest possible filling of lightly seasoned ground beef with no additions whatsoever.

Later, of course, I completely voided this carefully-achieved detente by becoming a vegetarian.

While there are certainly vegetarian-friendly empanada varieties that boast their own long-established authenticity — my favorites being creamy corn or spinach and cheese — I still periodically have attacks of nostalgia serious enough to have conducted a couple of experiments with meat substitutes. The trouble is that soy- or wheat-based faux beefs never really do the job, and at this point I’m steering away from the super-processed stuff anyway.

Empanadas remained a head-scratcher until recently, while I was making my shepherd’s pie, when it occurred to me that I’d already cracked the ground-beef substitution problem. The pie’s lentil filling was pretty much everything I was looking for: substantial, protein-rich, just saucy enough to be moist but not so liquid that it would run right out of a pastry pocket. Encouraged, I made a smaller pie and reserved half the filling for use later in the week, when I had time to make pastry. I was quite happy with the little pockets, both freshly-baked and warm, and cold the next day for lunch.

While I’m sure several generations of my ancestors are still spinning in disapproval at my giving up the almighty cow, lentils would have been a familiar food, especially during the meatless days of the Catholic calendar. Unorthodox it may be, but I still think they would have understood and even liked this empanada as much as I do.

I will add that, as usual, I’m not unequivocally satisfied with the pastry recipe. While it does produce a moderately crispy-flaky, firm but not muscular crust that securely contains the filling and holds up well to refrigeration, it’s also rather bratty to work with, both as you’re mixing it and as you’re stretching and filling. It must be really cold in order to stick together and hold a nice edge, and requires a good long chilling or freezing step before going in the oven. That is more aggravation than I need for a simple snack.

Now that I have the filling down, I may go back to this dough from Saveur, which I make with butter instead of lard. It’s not as flaky and it does leave your fingers a bit greasier, but it’s also way less troublesome and much friendlier to shape. It also responds excellently to my flattening method of choice:

I like to use a tortilla press for filled pastry not just because I lazily avoid the rolling pin as much as the piping bag, but also because it completely eliminates the issue of scraps. Re-rolled dough made from scraps will never come out as tender as first-rolled, and I hate throwing the scraps out. With a press, you get perfect, uniform circles without bothering with cookie cutters and with absolutely no waste.

Since it’s difficult to adequately explain in writing how empanada dough is crimped to form the traditional rope-like edge, check out this video for an easy-to-understand how-to. If the technique still eludes you, just seal them well with the tines of a fork.

Empanadas de Lentejas (Lentil Empanadas)
(Pastry adapted from Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best International Recipe)
Makes 32 snack-sized empanadas

For the pastry:

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
10 tablespoons ice water

For the filling:

1/2 cup brown lentils
1 small bay leaf
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1/2 cup finely diced celery
1/2 cup finely diced carrot
1 cup diced cremini mushrooms
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 large handful fresh parsley
Salt, pepper, and splashes of soy sauce to taste

For assembly:

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (optional)
1 large egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water

Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until well combined. Add the butter cubes and pulse again until the mixture resembles cornmeal. Dump out into a large bowl and add 1/4 cup of water at a time, working it into the flour mixture with a spatula just until no dry flour remains. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, flatten each into a disk, and wrap each tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 2 hours to relax and hydrate the dough.

In a small pot, boil the lentils with the bay leaf in just enough liquid to keep them covered until just tender, adding more boiling water if necessary. Do not drain the lentils.

Saute the onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms in the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat until the vegetables just begin to brown . Add the tomato sauce, the lentils with their liquid, and the parsley, torn roughly by hand. Simmer until the liquid has mostly evaporated, then season with salt, pepper, and soy. Cover and refrigerate until cold.

When everything is well chilled, take one pastry disk out of the fridge and divide into 16 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball, then cover again. Line a tortilla press with a strip of parchment, folded in half, or a quart-sized zip-top bag slit open along both sides. Set a ball of dough between the halves of the parchment or plastic, and press gently to a thin, uniform circle.

Hold the circle of dough in your palm and fill with around two tablespoons of lentils, leaving an inch clear around the edge. If desired, top with a teaspoon of hard boiled egg. Fold the dough over the filling to form a half-moon, pinch the edges firmly together to completely seal in the filling, and crimp as indicated above. Repeat for remaining balls of dough.

Set the empanadas on a parchment-lined baking sheet and return to the refrigerator to firm up again, at least 15 minutes. Repeat the process with the second disk of pastry on a second baking sheet.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Brush the cold filled pockets with the egg wash and bake, one sheet at a time, until nicely browned, 20-22 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Refrigerated leftovers will keep well for two or three days.

Notes:

If you prefer, the filled empanadas can also be frozen for baking later.

There are peas in the filling in the pictures above by virtue of it being half a batch I made for a shepherd’s pie, but as they’re not usually found in beef empanadas, I left them out of the recipe. If you like them, you can put them back in. If you’d like something green that actually is traditional in empanadas, try mixing some chopped green olives into the filling once it has cooled down.

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Easter Pie for Christmas

In keeping with my not-quite-there-yet attitude toward the holidays this year, there is one food that I’ve been craving since my little outburst of decorating two weekends ago. As it happens, it’s a holiday food, yes — but the wrong holiday.

This savory pie filled with spinach, ricotta and parmesan and seasoned with nutmeg is not traditionally a Christmas food. It’s an Easter food, which is why the Italian name for it, Torta Pasqualina, means “Easter Pie”. When I was growing up, we did have it for Easter, but I loved it so much that my mother could be persuaded to make it at other times of the year, and now that I’m a grown-up, I can make it for myself at Christmastime if I want to.

The catch is that it had been so long since I’d watched Mom make it that I pretty much forgot how, and would you believe that scouring through every single Italian cookbook I have, including the supposed bible of Italian cooking, did not turn up a recipe quite like what I was looking for? Oh, there were plenty of pies made with ricotta and greens, but either the dough was wrong (puff pastry? I don’t think so. Sweet pastafrolla? Even worse!) or the filling wasn’t right (prosciutto is definitely out and chard is nice but not what I was looking for here).

In the end, I had to do a lot of remixing, combining of elements, and filling in my own blanks to come up with a recipe closer to what I remembered. It’s not quite 100% there, and I will probably have to consult with Mom to figure out where the ratios were a little off, but it’s really darn close.

If you’ve never had this pie, imagine something a little like Greek spanikopita, except milder and eggier and denser. At least for me, it’s an incredibly comforting flavor, plus it’s green! Green is Christmassy, right? It’s also better cold than fresh out of the oven and will keep for days in the fridge, which makes it an excellent option if you want to make it ahead and devote most of your holiday cooking energy to fussy rolled-out cookies or wassail or what have you.

Torta Pasqualina, or Italian Spinach and Ricotta Pie
Serves 8-10

For pastry:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted butter, cut into 32 pieces
4 tablespoons non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon water

For filling:
2 12-ounce bags frozen spinach
1 16-ounce container part-skim ricotta cheese
1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano
2 teaspoons each salt and freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
4 large eggs, beaten

Place the butter and shortening in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to chill thoroughly.

Place dry ingredients in the food processor bowl and pulse several times to combine. Add the butter and shortening and pulse again until sandy, 12-15 times. Beat the water into the eggs and add to the processor, and process until the dough starts to form a ball around the blade. Divide the dough into two pieces, one comprising two-thirds of the dough. Form each piece into a flat disk, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Defrost the spinach in the microwave, then squeeze bone-dry in a colander or a dish towel. Place in a large bowl and stir in the cheeses, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Taste the filling and correct the seasonings as necessary; it should be slightly over-seasoned since it will be eaten cold. Stir in the eggs. Set aside.

Set the rack at the lower-middle position and heat oven to 350F.

Roll the larger piece of dough into a circle large enough to line a 9-inch springform pan. Tuck the pastry into the pan, letting the excess hang over the sides. Spread the filling onto the pastry, leveling and smoothing the top. Roll out the second piece of dough and set over the filling. Trim the excess, tuck the edges under, and crimp. Cut an X in the center and pull back the corners to leave a vent for the filling as it cooks.

Bake the pie for 60-70 minutes, until the pastry is golden-brown and the filling that peeks through the opening in the crust looks dry and set. Cool completely before eating, and refrigerate any leftovers.

Notes:

I used salted butter because I’m hoarding the unsalted for holiday cookie baking, but if you only have unsalted around, add 1 teaspoon salt to the dry ingredients.

Using lower-fat ricotta is not only fine but even preferable here, since the full-fat kind can make this unpleasantly rich in combination with the eggy pastry.

Many versions of this pie crack additional whole eggs into the filling, which bake to a hard-boiled consistency and make for a pretty presentation when the pie is cut open. If you want to try this, use a big soup spoon to create 4-5 evenly-spaced deep indentations in the filling once you’ve spread it inside the pastry, and carefully crack an egg into each well. Cover the pie with the second layer of pastry and proceed as instructed.

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More North and South Stories

Cranberry-Quince Pastafrola

Thanks to multiple rounds of entertaining over the Thanksgiving, I only had about a cup of cranberry sauce left this time around. This was just the right quantity to allow me to write a tidy little epilogue to my American story about the melding of my Southern Hemisphere roots, my New England sojourn, and all the years between and since.

As I’ve mentioned before, pastafrola is a typically Argentine afternoon snack and casual dessert, somewhere between a tart and a bar cookie.  It’s composed of a thick layer of quince preserves (membrillo), sandwiched between layers of a slightly eggy pastry used extensively in Italian baking, pasta frolla, whence the name.  If you’d like to see what the real deal looks like, Pip’s and Katy’s are legit.

This, my friends, is not legit, but it’s closer than the bastard cousin deconstructed version I made during my pre-move pantry clearing efforts.  I’d like to think that if my grandmother ever had transplanted to Boston, she would have come up with a cranberry version like this. I rather suspect my mom would approve, too, since she disfavors highly sugary desserts.

I’m not perfectly content with the pastry here, since it was a little bit more biscuity and puffy than it really needed to be, but I do love how the tartness of the cranberries tones down the sweetness of the quince and pear and richness of the pastry, to say nothing of adding a seasonally-appropriate red sparkle.  I’ll definitely be engaging in further experimentation with the Christmas batch of cranberry sauce.

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Mid-Week Baklava

I’m still writing up this week’s Sunday baking recipe, but as an appetizer, I’m putting up the baklava I made in the middle of last week.

And why did the crazy woman make baklava in the middle of the week? Because she can, darlings!

OK, truthfully, because she defrosted phyllo over the Fourth of July weekend, dreaming all kinds of big phyllo-wrapped dreams, but never actually got around to realizing any of them. Instead, I made a simple spinach, potato and feta pie for dinner on Tuesday, using one of the two individually-wrapped 8-oz sleeves in the pack. Then, looking down at the third of a roll of dough left in the sleeve, I thought, what the hell, I’ll make baklava while I’m at it.

Although I have a few legitimate Greek cookbooks, I chose the Cook’s Illustrated Best International Recipe version as a starting point because I had yet to cook out of that book despite having obtained it it nearly two years ago as a result of the temporary insanity that led me to sign up for the CI cookbook club.

In addition to roughly quartering the quantities to fit the amount of dough I had, I made a couple of modifications in terms of ingredients and technique. First, regardless of its supposed superiority over plain melting, there was no way I was clarifying butter at 9:00 pm on a work day. I also chose the more adventurous combination of almonds and pistachios over their walnut-almond mix.

The combination of almonds and pistachios worked well, because pistachios alone can be a little overwhelming in baklava, and almonds by themselves don’t have enough character to stand up to the honey syrup. The CI approach of creating three thin layers of nut filling produces a nicely flaky and cohesive pastry without the usual tendency to slide and split in half when picked up. It was nicely saturated all the way through with this quantity of syrup, but next time I might double it just to ensure a completely hedonistic experience.

Baklava is never going to be an effortless endeavor, but this was ready to bake by the time the spinach pie came out of the oven, and it makes a perfectly reasonable quantity for a small household instead of enough to feed an army. It does need to sit several hours to absorb the syrup, so you won’t be eating it until morning unless you’re an even more incorrigible night owl than I am. The reward for your evening industriousness is sticky, buttery, crisp, perfect baklava with your breakfast coffee.

Almond-Pistachio Baklava
Serves 2-6

Syrup:
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons honey
2 strips lemon zest
1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 pinch salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Pastry:
2 ounces sliced, unsalted almonds
1 ounce roasted, salted pistachios
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground cloves
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 lb phyllo sheets

Combine sugar, honey, zest, and spices for the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat until sugar has dissolved, stirring or swirling the pot as necessary. Transfer to a heat-safe cup, remove the lemon peel and cinnamon stick, stir in the lemon juice, and set aside to cool.

Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position and preheat the oven to 300 F. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of a glass baking dish approximately 8 x 6 x 2.

Process nuts in a food processor until finely chopped, and transfer to a small bowl. Remove 1 tablespoon of nut mixture for the final garnish, then add cinnamon, cloves, and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar to remaining nuts.

Unroll the phyllo and cut to fit the size of the pan. Place one sheet in the bottom of the pan, and brush the entire surface with melted butter. Repeat with 9 more sheets, then sprinkle the top with one third of the nut filling. Cover the filling with 6 more individually-buttered sheets, and the next third of the filling. Repeat with another 6 sheets and the final third of nut mixture. Top with 8-10 more sheets of phyllo.

Using your flat palms, press out any air bubbles in the pastry, then brush on the remaining butter. Using a serrated knife, cut the baklava into diamonds, making sure to pierce all the way through the bottom layers.

Bake 1 1/2 hours or until completely golden, rotating the pan halfway through. Remove from oven and immediately pour all but 2 tablespoons of the syrup along each crevice, then drizzle the remaining syrup over the top. Sprinkle a generous pinch of the reserved ground nuts on the center of each piece.

Cool on a wire rack for 2-3 hours, then cover with foil and let stand 8 hours or overnight.

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Birthday Apple Pie

His lordship, like many a bearer of the Y-chromosome, is generally uninspired by sweets. He will take them happily enough should they appear before him, but he will rarely lament their absence. Cake in particular is usually his last choice from the dessert menu, which is why we celebrate his birthday every year with pie instead.

Wherein lies the problem, because pie crust is the runner-up for the title of my personal culinary nemesis (the winner, I would think, should be obvious). Pastry, yeast, even candy I can master, but really good, reliable pie crust has, for many years, eluded me. Every decent pie I’ve made has been outnumbered two or threefold by dry, crumbly, tough, or greasy less-than-perfect-successes. While many people have issues with this area of baking, I’m doubly handicapped at the gate since two of the standard go-to ingredients are off-limits. Lard, while OK with his lordship, does not fit in my vegetarian lifestyle, and transfat-laden shortening is not good for either of us. That leaves all-butter crusts, which, while very flavorful, can be horribly temperamental and, no matter how perfectly executed, are never going to achieve the ideal of flaky tenderness of a truly perfect pie.

Until now, the best results I’ve been able to achieve is by using the French technique of fraisage, in which the sandy dough is smeared across a cold work surface with the heel of your hand to build flat, thin sheets of flour-coated butter that will puff in the oven into crisp layers that impart that much-desired flakiness. While it produces lovely results, the process is fiddly, time-consuming and messy, which is why most of the time I’ve drifted into the less cumbersome and more forgiving tart zone. His lordship’s previous birthday ‘pies’ have included tarte tatins, linzertortes, pear frangipane tartes and the like.

This year, though, he specifically requested all-American double-crust apple pie, so there was no getting away from the pastry conundrum. I could have cheated and used store-bought, since there are a few on the market that use neither animal fats nor hydrogenated fat, but a birthday pie really deserves more effort than that. When I saw non-hydrogenated, palm-oil-based shortening in the store, I thought I’d give it a shot, using a recipe from the always-reliable chefs at America’s Test Kitchen, in the encyclopedic New Best Recipe. To my surprise, it worked perfectly. The pastry was far easier to work with than I expected, and baked up as beautifully flaky and light as any I’ve ever had. The filling, a mixture of Fujis, Jonagolds and Honeycrisps from several trips to the farmer’s market, was juicy and complex. His lordship was delighted, and declined ice cream or whipped cream, preferring to enjoy it in its pure, ungarnished form.

The only factors preventing me from dubbing it a complete triumph are that, in my haste, I forgot to add the salt to the flour, and I really ought to have chilled the entire pie well before baking to ensure better definition, since the very high initial baking temperature flattened out my careful crimping almost immediately. Still, it’s the best result ever, and I finally feel as though I’ve achieved the upper hand against that pesky pie dough.

Birthday Apple Pie

2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 oz) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
6-8 tablespoons ice water

8 cups sliced apples of choice (in 1/4-inch slices, from approximately 3 pounds of apples)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon grated lemon or orange zest
3/4 cup (5 1/4 oz) sugar
1 teaspoon apple pie spice
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg white, beaten lightly
1 tablespoon raw sugar

Chill shortening and butter very thoroughly before beginning.

Process the flour and salt in a food processor until combined. Add the shortening and pulse for 10 seconds, then add the butter and pulse again until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Turn out into medium bowl.

Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of ice water over mixture and fold in with a rubber spatula, pressing down until the dough sticks together. Add additional ice water as necessary. Divide into two balls and flatten into disks. Wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour before using.

Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place a rimmed baking sheet on rack, and preheat to 500 F.

Roll each disk of dough into a 12-inch circle between two sheets of parchment or plastic wrap. Set one circle into a 9-inch pie plate, pressing gently into the corners and leaving a 1/2-inch overhang. Chill the lined pie plate and the top crust well while preparing the filling.

In a medium bowl, toss the apples with the lemon juice and zest. Mix the sugar, apple pie spice, flour and salt in a medium bowl, then toss in with the apples. Fill the chilled shell with the apple mixture, mounding it in the center. Cover with the top crust, tucking the edge under the bottom crust overhang so that the fold is flush with the pan edge. Crimp the edge to seal, cut four slits in the top, and place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Brush the top and edge with the egg white and sprinkled with sugar. Place on the baking sheet and lower the temperature to 425 F. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes, then reduce to 375 F. Continue baking until bubbly and deep golden brown, 30-35 minutes more.

Cool the pie on a rack to room temperature, 4 hours or more.

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