How to Make Spicy Beef Empanadas – Crispy, Tasty Mexican Deep Fried Beef Pies

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How to Make Spicy Beef Empanadas - Crispy, Tasty Mexican Deep Fried Beef Pies
Author: 
Recipe type: Beef / Empanadas
Cuisine: Mexican
Serves: 30-32
 
With festive season right here it's good to have a couple of recipes that can feed hordes of family and friends. These super tasty beef empanadas will certainly warm your hearts and this recipe will make about 30 x 5 inch pocket pies. In addition they can be made in advance, frozen, and fried very successfully from frozen.
Ingredients
For the Filling
  • 1kg Beef mince
  • 2 Medium onions
  • 50g Butter
  • 15ml Cornflour
  • 300g Mature Jack Cheese
  • 15ml Ground cumin
  • 15ml Ground coriander seed
  • 15ml Paprika
  • 15ml Oregano
  • 15ml Chilli flakes (more if you want fire)
  • 15ml Garlic powder
  • 30ml Dried, powdered coriander leaf
  • 30ml Dried, powdered avocado leaf
  • 30ml Lemon or lime zest
  • 400ml Beef stock
For the Pastry (you need 4 batches of this)
  • 400g All purpose flour
  • 5ml Salt
  • 10ml Baking powder
  • 120g Shortening (baking lard)
  • 180ml Full cream milk
Instructions
  1. Measure out the ground cumin, ground coriander seed, paprika, oregano, chilli flakes, garlic powder, dried powdered coriander leaf, dried powdered avocado leaf and the lemon or lime zest.
  2. Roughly the onions and weigh out the butter.
  3. Place the ground beef in large container and pour in all of the herbs and spices.
  4. Get in there with your hands and massage this into the beef thoroughly.
  5. Heat a large pan over high heat and add the butter.
  6. When the butter starts to bubble, add the chopped onion. Fry this for about 6 minutes until tender and starting to brown slightly on the edges.
  7. Break the ground beef over the onions. Immediately start chopping the beef into the onion with the edge of your spatula.
  8. Ground beef tends to clump together when fried, and chopping through the lumps will break this all down.
  9. Fry and chop the beef for 6 to 8 minutes until cooked through and well colored.
  10. Pouring the beef stock and stir to combine. Turn the heat down to medium and allow this to simmer for for 6 minutes.
  11. Dissolve the cornflour in a little water and add this to the beef.
  12. Stir this in, bring it to a boil and allow to continue for a minute or two.
  13. Remove this from the heat and allow to cool completely.
  14. For the pastry, weigh out the all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, shortening and milk. For this quantity of filling, you will need to make 4 batches of pastry, so weigh out all 4 separately before processing.
  15. Working with the first batch, place the flour, salt, baking powder and shortening in you processor.
  16. Put the lid on and pulse this briefly 2 to 3 times to cut the shortening into the flour.
  17. Remove the lid and pour in half of the milk. Put the lid on and run the machine on high speed for 5 seconds. While the machine runs, tilt the machine back and forth to aid the mixing.
  18. Remove the lid, pour in the remaining milk, replace the lid and switch the machine on high. Tilt the machine back and forth for about 10 seconds until the dough comes together in a crumbly mass.
  19. Turn the dough out onto your work surface. Wrap the dough in cling-wrap flattening it out as you go. Transfer this to your refrigerator and continue with the remaining 3 batches of pastry.
  20. By this stage the filling will have cooled. Pour in the grated cheese and mix this in thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  21. To assemble the empanadas, a tortilla press is very useful. If you don't have a press, simply roll the pastry with a rolling pin.
  22. Divide each batch of pastry into 8 portions, giving you 32 portions in all.
  23. Press the portions out, or roll, using plastic bread film to prevent sticking.
  24. Use your rolling pin to finished rolling these into rounds of just larger than 5 inches or 125mm.
  25. If you don't have an empanada press you can form the empanadas quite easily by hand.
  26. Drop 60g of the filling onto the top half of the pastry. Hold the front of the pastry while you lift the lower edge of the pastry up and over the filling. Crimp the edge to seal.
  27. Using an empanada press, cut the perfect round from the pastry using the cutter in the base of the press.
  28. Keeping the plastic film in place, drop this on top of the press.
  29. Add 60g of filling to one side of the pastry and tamp this down.
  30. Holding the plastic film and the handles close the press to seal in the filling.
  31. Continue until all of the empanadas are formed.
  32. Half fill a large pan with oil and heat this to 180c or 350f.
  33. Fry the empanadas in batches for 2 to 3 minutes per side until crisp, puffed and golden. Remove these from the oil and continue with the remaining pies.
  34. And there we have it... beautifully golden Mexican beef empanadas to feed the crowd.

 

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