I often can’t remember exactly how old I am this year or which exit I need to take to get to my brother’s house. But I do remember the first time I heard of empanadas, something like 13 years ago. I remember because Rockford told me about them on the phone one evening, after a fellow intern on whom he still says he did not have a crush introduced him to them one day when they went out for lunch.

Jealousy is a powerful thing. Maybe if Rockford developed a crush on my shoes I could remember where I put them.

The only empanada that I knew of before this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge was the small, handheld pastry version — like the Empanadas Mendocinas featured on From Argentina with Love — so I was surprised when I read through the recipe to find that I wouldn’t be making what I was already thinking of as homemade Hot Pockets. This recipe is for Empanada Gallega, which hails from Spain and, according to Wikipedia, is the great-granddad of the little empanadas I was expecting. This empanada is a big freeform pie that’s cut into slices to serve.

The host for the September challenge had a few suggestions for filling the empanada — salt cod and tuna were both suggested — but I decided to go my own way this time. I made a vegetarian version using black beans and plantain. The filling was tasty, but the bread on my empanada was much thicker than I’d originally envisioned. I think I could fix that by rolling the dough out thinner.

The finished product was kind of like a giant sandwich. Rockford thought it was great, but that may have been because it reminded him of the days when he got to have lunch with cute South American interns.

Black Bean & Plantain Empanada

For the dough
5-1/3 cups bread flour
2 cups lukewarm water (about 85 degrees)
1 tablespoon dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons oil
1 large egg, for egg wash

Measure the flour into the bowl of a stand mixture and make a well in the middle. Rub the yeast in with your fingers.

In a small bowl, mix the water and the salt. With your mixer on “stir,” pour the salty water into the flour. Increase mixer speed to low and knead the dough for about 6 minutes.

Clean and oil the bowl you used for mixing and place the kneaded dough back into it. Cover it
with a napkin or piece of linen and keep it in a warm, draught-free place for approximately 40 to 50 minutes. Once risen, turn the dough back into a floured counter and cut it in half. Cover one half with the napkin to prevent drying.

Spread the other half of the dough using a rolling pin. You can use a piece of wax paper over the counter; it will make it easier to move the dough around. Depending on the shape of your oven pan or cookie sheet, you will make a rectangle or a round.

The thinness of the dough will depend on your choice of filling and how much bread you like in every bite. For your first time, make it about 3mm thin (about 1/10th of an inch) and then adjust from that in the next ones you make.

for the filling
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large plantain, chopped
oil
1 can black beans, rinsed
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup shredded cheese (I used Velveeta Queso Blanco)

Brown plantain; set aside. Cook onion and garlic until the onion is transparent. Stir in cumin, chili powder and black beans. Stir until the spices are well-distributed, then stir in the plantain.

Let filling cool before assembling the empanada.

(I didn’t forget the cheese; I sprinkled it over the filling when I assembled things.)

Assembling the Empanada
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

If you haven’t used wax paper, either lightly flour or line with wax paper your pan or tray. Cover the base and sides with the dough. Using the rolling pin or a knife, cut the extra dough.

Take the other half of the dough and spread it out to the same or less thinness of the base. You can use a piece of wax paper for this too. Take into account that this “top” dough needs to be smaller around than the bottom, as it only needs to cover the filling.

If not using wax paper, move carefully the top to cover the filling. If using wax paper, transfer the dough, turn upside down, cover the filling and gently peel off the wax paper. Using your fingers, join bottom and top dough, when you have gone all the way around, start pinching top and bottom together with your thumb and index finger and turning them half way in, that way you end up with a rope-like border. As a picture is worth a thousand words, please watch this video to see how it is done: How to close a typical Empanada Gallega.

When you are finished, make a 1-inch hole in the middle of the top layer. This will help hot air exit the empanada while it’s baking without breaking the cover. You can use leftover dough to decorate the empanada, using rounds, bows, lines — let your imagination flow and make it pretty!

Using a fork, prick the top layer or, using scissors, make snips that go all the way through the layers. In a small bowl, beat an egg and add a tbsp of cold water. With the pastry brush, paint the top of the empanada with the egg wash.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the bottom layer is fully baked.

Patri of the blog, Asi Son Los Cosas, was our September 2012 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she decided to tempt us with one of her family’s favorite recipes for Empanadas! We were given two dough recipes to choose from and encouraged to fill our Empanadas as creatively as we wished!