Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Empanadas!

Good morning DFO!

Welp, this is THAT weekend. This is the weekend that I’m venturing out into a globally infected world in an effort to actually “do shit.”

Later today Eldest right and the 2 oldest granddaughters and I are off to Hollywood for the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit. To make everyone’s lives that much more challenging the producers of the event decided to host it at the old Amoeba Records building right at Hollywood and Vine. 

How very fucking thoughtful of them.

Think there will be traffic?

Think there will be a serious effort to find affordable parking?

You can go ahead and answer in the affirmative to both of those questions.

I’m still very much looking forward to it though.

The real fun comes tomorrow when I’m off to Long Beach Airport and a flight to Denver. Tomorrow night is Black Crowes at Red Rocks. Should be quite the active day between the flight, the Metro rail to downtown Denver from the airport, the checking into the hotel, the finding the shuttle to Red Rocks and maybe finding a spare minute to grab a bite somewhere.

I’ll have all day Tuesday to spend in Denver.

Final question: Think my ass will be fully fucking masked and carrying hand sanitizer with me everywhere I go? That’s a great goddamn BIG 10-4 good buddy.

Yes, I’m rattled as fuck to be doing this but then again I’ve held these tickets for almost 2 fucking years and the show is scheduled to go on. I really want to have an amazing time, see some live music and turn this entire trip into a positive mental experience.

I’ll keep y’all updated as I travel.

Anyway.

Final preseason weekend people. Next week we have us Labor Day Weekend and then it’s time for kickoff.

Oh fuck yes.

Before we get there though we’ve still got a couple of episodes of Sunday Gravy to get to.

This is one of them.

Got a fun and tasty recipe for you today.

Feel like getting after some empanadas and maybe a couple of homemade salsas?

Sorry, that was a question too.

AWAY WE GO!

 

We will start the proceedings by making our two types of salsa. One red and one green.

Let’s start with the red.

Procure yourself some chilies. I will be using these today.

Obviously when working with dried chilies we will need to reconstitute them.

I used about 1/2 cup of the chile de arbol pods and steeped them in about 3/4 cups of hot water. I also threw in 3 cloves of garlic. Let this steep for about 30 minutes. I had the lid on the blender.

People…

This was the moment that I basically fucking pepper sprayed myself. I took the lid off of the blender and for some dumb ass reason decided to take a biggol’ whiff.

Motherfucker.

I teared up, coughed a handful of times then had to sprint to the bathroom to blow my runny nose. It was quite eye opening.

I dumped out about half of the water then added in 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, equal amounts of oregano, salt and a grind of black pepper then I gave it a spin.

It was exactly as hot as you think it was. Fucking hell.

Back to back kicks to the nether regions.

After a quick mental assessment I added in a full 14 oz can of tomato sauce and gave this a blend.

Still hot but very, very delicious.

The green salsa requires a bit more effort.

Gather the needed vegetation.

Hatch green chilies – CURRENTLY IN SEASON! – and jalapenos. Obviously 2 of each today

You’ll need a few of these too.

Tomatillos! Shuck them out of their little jackets and give ’em a slice.

Roast in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.

The hatch chilies and the jalapenos will roast at the same temperature as the tomatillos but for a total of 30 minutes, turn them once at the 15 minute mark.

Place the roasted chilies into a paper bag or just put them in a bowl and cover with foil for a few minutes to help to remove the blistered skins.

Into the blender we go with 3 cloves of garlic and just enough liquid to form an emulsion. Unfortunately I didn’t have chicken stock on hand so this was about 1/2 cup of water.

I also added 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, 1/2 teaspoon of coriander and some salt to taste.

This is goddamn delicious stuff right here.

Both salsas will go into the refrigerator for an overnight rest.

Next day we’ll start with the beans first since they cook the longest.

Standard prep with 1/2 bag of beans, 3 cups of water, 1/2 medium onion minced, 4 cloves of garlic minced, 2 pods of chile de arbol and season up with cumin, chile powder salt and pepper. Simmer for about 2 1/2 hours. Finally cook about 3 strips of bacon and add the bacon grease right at the end.

Empandada time!

recipe inspired by therecipecritic.com

For The Dough

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup cold butter cubed

1 large egg

3/4 cup cold water

For The Filling

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion – minced

4 cloves of garlic – minced

6 oz. boiled diced potato

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 or 2 pickled jalapenos – diced

16 oz. ground beef – wait until you see what we used today

1 tsp salt

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp marjoram

1/4 cup frozen peas

1 to 2 finely chopped green onions

egg wash for basting – one egg white and 1 tablespoon of water

 

Start with the dough.

Get some cubed, cold butter and put it in the food processor.

Next add in the flour and salt and give this a few pulses until the butter resembles, that’s right, small peas.

Then we add the water and the egg and give it a spin.

Pretty fucking cool how quickly the dough comes together in the food processor.

Grab some plastic wrap and wrap that shit up tight.

Into the fridge you go! I made the dough right after starting the black beans so it rested for a couple of hours.

Since we’ll be using potato in the empanada filling mixture, go ahead and grab a spud and peel it and cube it up.

Cook and drain the spuds. This will only need to cook for about 4-5 minutes. They’ll have two additional cooking sessions before service.

Get your work station ready.

Since empanadas usually call for a green olive inside and I’m not a huge fan of the green olive unless it’s nestled in a very frosty martini, I improvised.

Remember these?

There’s some of our homemade pickled jalapenos that we made a few weeks back.

Recipe here.

Thought these might be a good substitute for green olives since they’ll add that bit of tang and acid from the pickling process.

Mince them up.

I’ve noticed an interesting trend at the grocery store lately. Particularly in the hamburger section. It’s not just your basic 80-20, 85-15 ground beef selection anymore. They have ground chicken, turkey, pork plus the veggie based “Impossible” and “Beyond” options.

I found this shit and just had to give it a try.

We’re going wagyu motherfuckers!

Next assemble the spice collection needed.

Cumin, salt, pepper, chili powder, marjoram and paprika.

Get one last check of the beans before we get to the speed round.

Looking really tasty there!

Time to make the filling mix.

Onions first.

Cook until translucent then add the wagyu!

Cook for a few minutes until the pink has been cooked out.

While it’s browning add in the spices, the garlic, green onion, the tomato paste and finally the peas and the cooked potato.

This will simmer for maybe 5 minutes to allow the flavors to incorporate.

Let this cool down a bit and we will turn our attention back to the dough.

After removing the dough from the refrigerator prepare a space to roll the dough out.

Look! It’s a lightly floured surface.

Flatten out that dough already.

Try and get this to about a1/4″ thickness. Doesn’t have to be exact.

Using a large biscuit cutter cut out the circles for the empanadas. Wish I had a picture of this step but my hands were gooey. Shape up the empanadas. I have a set of graduated biscuit cutters and I used the largest one. It was about 5″ across.

Grab a spoonful of the filling and place it on one half of the dough. Not too much filling. Just a good scoop. Add on a bit of the diced jalapeno, carefully fold the dough over and seal the edges.

If you’ve had empanadas before or watched a cooking show where they roll up and seal the empanadas into these perfect little half-moon disks and have the lovely fluted edges then you know what they should look like.

First time, people. Keep that in mind.

Mine looked like this.

It’s a start, dammit! It’s pretty important to seal the edges well so the filling doesn’t cook out. I dipped my fingers in water and applied that to the edge of the dough prior to folding over. It seemed to work pretty well. Notice the use of parchment paper on our baking sheet, this is pretty goddamn important.

After filling and assembling all of our empanadas I still had a decent amount of leftover filling mixture.

This shit will make a fucking killer burrito later in the week. Splash some of that leftover salsa on there?

Preheat your oven to 375 and get ready for bake-age.

Baste the empanadas with the egg wash and let these bake for about 15-25 minutes. You want a golden brown finish. Pretty sure I pulled the empanadas a little early because I was worried about the dough getting too tough. That was unnecessary. 

Let’s get them fuckers out of the oven already!

Nice! Not too much leakage or anything!

Time for service.

Get the two salsas out and ready them for dipping.

Lovely contrast with the bright green and dense red.

Grab yourself a plate and get busy.

Get a scoop of beans on there.

Feel free to add cheese to the beans if you like and don’t forget the salsas. That red salsa would go great with the black beans.

Grab an empanada or two and apply some salsa.

Let’s take a few different looks at our subject, shall we?

Can we get a little closer yet?

Those salsas really stand out don’t they?

Take a look at the empanada by itself.

One plate wasn’t gonna do it today.

Back for seconds I go.

See! There’s nothing wrong with their shape after all!

First note: you can absolutely fry these in oil rather than baking but I chose the path of lesser cleanup today.

The structure of the dough held up perfectly but I may make something a little closer to a standard pastry dough next time. I.E. no egg, but this worked well.

The filling is smoky, sumptuous, slightly spicy and has that tang of the jalapeno. The paprika is a star player and there is obviously going to be a cumin flavor. Fresh burst from the peas and green onion adds a contrast. The dough is fluffy and slightly flaky and when you add on the salsa you are working on something magical.

The green salsa may look familiar to some of you since I use several variations in different cooking applications such as when I make chile verde. It is so damn good here. It has a fruity, slightly spicy note but it’s more floral than spice-forward. Just perfect with the empanada.

The red sauce has more bad fucking intentions but dear god is it ever delicious too. Brings a little more anger to the empanada but it also has a smoky, garlicky presence in addition to the tomato taste.

Both salsas add terrific elements to the dish and I really liked the contrast between the 2. I would recommend both.

That was also a close to perfect batch of black beans today too.

I made these the day of my first live fantasy football draft of the season and it was pretty easy to find yourself sneaking into the kitchen between draft picks to grab a quick bite or two.

Delicious, delicious stuff.

There we go folks!

Just one week of Sunday Gravy left and then it’s all football all of the time.

Wish me luck as I head out of my lockdown cave into a slightly infected and fully insane world. I sure hope I don’t need it.

See you next week for the season finale.

Until then…

Be Safe.

Be Well.

PEACE!