Empanadas de Carne

Paulina Cocina’s empanadas de carne fill twelve prepared pastry covers with ground meat, onion, red bell pepper, garlic and tomato. Olives, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper join the filling, alongside tomato purée.

Onion and red bell pepper are cooked in a pot with hot oil. Garlic, salt and pepper are added when they are part-cooked; the heat is raised and all the ground meat joins at once, being moved so it does not stick.

Once the meat is seared, supplied cubed tomato and tomato purée are added with paprika, cumin and more salt and pepper. The pot is partly covered, leaving a small gap, and cooks for about half an hour with occasional stirring. Off the heat, the filling cools in the same pot before supplied chopped olives are mixed in.

The filling is divided among the pastry covers, which close with a traditional repulgue. In the selected optional finish, egg is painted over them before baking on a tray in a hot oven until golden.

The publisher describes the finished empanadas as hot. This baked version uses the recipe’s prepared covers and plain ground-meat filling.