Chilacayote Empanadas

Yesterday, Memorial Day 2013, I wrote in my journal:

On a day like today my son was buried, at the very front of neat, diagonal rows of tombstones. The empty, verdant field in front of his grave where his mother and father gasped in anguish at the sight of his casket on that day, is now a fully populated landscape, filled with the lost dreams of young lives ripped away from this earth so early, so incomprehensibly. The rows grew from Alex's grave in all directions, of those young who still lived, breathed, and dreamed they would survive, when Alex was lowered into the ground. So much was lost and buried forever, never to be found again.

I could not bear to write about celebratory food. I longed to write about memories of times past, memories that didn't tread anywhere near the symbols of this day. Would you humor me with my recipe for empanadas which I learned from my aunt in Mexico? Because...after that moment in our lives seven years ago, we ever so slowly learned to live again, and food once again became the expression of love that it had always been. These chilacayote empanadas are truly special, divine little folded pockets of love, flaky on the outside with a golden, angel-hair surprise spilling out of every bite. My elderly aunt, Leyla, prepared the filling in the little town of Marfil, Guanajuato, recently, and then packed the jars filled with the angel hair chilacayote in her suitcase for her bus ride to San Miguel de Allende where she visited us. It all reminded me of those days so long ago in Laredo when the aunts arrived with bags full of delicacies from Monterrey, Puebla, or Villaldama.

Chilacayote is a squash that favors a mountain micro climate, very common in the area around San Miguel de Allende; its mottled sage green color is a delight to the eyes, and, as it turns out, you can prepare a million different things from chilacayote, just take a look online.

One of my favorites is candied chilacayote and another is agua de chilacayote. Anyway, Tía Leyla arrived with the cooked, amber colored angel hair chilacayote filling and it was a perfect beginning for a tray of empanadas. We put our aprons on the next morning and got to work, cranking out dozens of empanadas ready to offer friends arriving at our house from out of town later that day. I lost myself that day in the good moments shared with a beloved aunt and the conviviality of those days that followed with friends that came and went, exclaiming over our seemingly endless supply of
empanadas.

Chilacayote Empanadas

Recipe Type: dessert

Cuisine: Mexican

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 1 hour 45 mins

Total time: 1 hour 50 mins

Serves: 15

This recipe is on the difficult side but well worth it if you can find chilacayotes where you live.

Ingredients:

• a 5 lb chilacayote (more or less)
• brown sugar or piloncillo (you will measure half the weight of your baked squash)
• 2 cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• grated peel of one orange

Instructions:

1. Cut the chilacayote in half and bake covered for one hour in a 350 degree oven.


2. Remove from the oven and scoop out the flesh.


3. You don't have to remove the seeds, they're good for you!


4. Weigh it and place in a large pot covered with water, half the weight in sugar, the cloves, the stick of cinnamon and the grated peel of the orange.


5. Cook at medium heat for about 45 minutes until it all caramelizes and the water evaporates.


6. Take care to stir often so it doesn't stick.

Notes

The recipe for the pastry is here: http://culinarianexpeditions.blogspot.com/2011/11/floria-pumpkin-empanadas.html

Floria's Pumpkin Empanadas

Recipe Type: Dessert

Prep time: 45 mins

Cook time: 8 mins

Total time: 53 minsHome

Serves: 8 to 10

Ingredients

• Filling

• 2 15oz cans of pure pumpkin

• 2 cups of brown sugar or piloncillo

• 1 cinnamon stick

• 10 cloves or 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice

• Dough

• 4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

• 4 tablespoons of sugar

• 1 tablespoon of cinnamon

• 1 1/4 cups of vegetable shortening

• 1 cup of tepid water

• 
  

1. Cook the pumpkin with brown sugar/piloncillo and spices at medium heat for 15 minutes.

1. Let it thicken a bit.

1. Remove the cinnamon sticks and cloves (optional). Set aside to cool.

1. Preheat the oven at 375 degrees.

1. Mix the flour, salt and spices together in a bowl.

1. Place the flour mixture in a food processor and add the shortening.

1. Once the shortening is dispersed throughout the flour (it should look a little like corn meal), slowly add the water. (Add more or less water, as needed.)

1. The dough should be moist and mold easily.

1. Mold into a large ball and wrap in plastic.

1. Place in the refrigerator for at least a 1/2 hour.

1. Remove the dough and dust the surface of a counter or other space with a little flour.

1. Roll out a small ball of dough until it is relatively thin.

1. Cut out circles that are three to four inches in diameter.

1. Add a tablespoon or so of the pumpkin mixture and fold.

1. Use the prongs of a fork to seal the edges.

1. Bake on each side for 4 minutes.

Also, I was left with a surplus of pumpkin filling, so I made a second batch of dough in order to use all of the filling called for in Floria's recipe.

Instructions:

Filling

Dough

Notes

The empanadas are delicious as described above. I added an egg wash and dusted some sugar on them toward the end of the cooking time. This gave them a pretty color and added a little texture.

Food is Bond

Food binds us to each other on an intimate level.  This is undeniable.  So-called “comfort foods” remind us of our childhoods when we felt safe, perhaps enveloped in a grandparent’s affection.  Sometimes the dishes we prepare remind us of loved ones we’ve lost, their once palpable enthusiasm for a homemade meal now relegated to a bittersweet memory.

When we spend the day kneading dough together or drawing a new family member closer by sharing an old family recipe.  When we puzzle over a recipe and wonder how the art of cooking came so easily to those who came before us.  Well, these are the ways in which we deepen our relationships to one another and uphold our traditions.  Food lies at the heart of it all, as something we need for both physical and spiritual survival.

Case in point.  I’ve spent the entire day making empanadas.  The recipe is simple but the assembly arduous.  Gilda (la Madrina) and I made the first few together while we sipped wine and contemplated the chemistry of pastry.  But this recipe belongs to an auntie I acquired, along with several other lovable and adoring family members (most of whom hail from Argentina), when I married The Saint.  My Tía Raquel and her sister (my mother-in-law) recently treated me to a talk about their childhood memories of Argentina:

Like the gift that keeps on giving, a discussion about food resulted in my Tía Raquel sharing her recipe for empanadas, a “comfort food” staple in many Latin American countries and Spain.  Now, forever a food that will remind me of her and of this moment.  The gesture of remembering together, sharing a recipe, cooking and talking — these are profound ways we strengthen our ties to one another, almost without even noticing we're doing it. Beautiful, isn't it?

Raquel's Beef Empanadas

#ratingval# from #reviews# reviews

Print

Recipe Type: Appetizer

Ingredients

• Filling


• 1 pound ground beef


• 1 cup chopped onions


• 1 cup chopped tomatoes


• 1 cup chopped green peppers


• 1 clove finely minced garlic


• 1½ teaspoons corn starch


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon sugar


• 1 teaspoon black pepper


• A “touch” of red pepper


• 1 cup of water


• 2 hard boiled eggs (optional)


• 1 egg yolk, beaten (optional)


• Dough


• 3 cups of flour (I used whole wheat flour here)


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions

Filling

1. Brown the beef over medium heat.


2. Add the onion, green pepper, tomato and garlic.


3. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and until the onions are transparent. Stir in the corn starch, salt, sugar, and pepper.


4. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Here, I also added two chopped, hardboiled eggs, something I really like in empanadas.

Pastry dough

1. Stir together the unsifted flour (I used whole wheat flour, different from my aunt's recipe.), salt and baking powder.


2. Combine ¾ cup of olive oil and ½ cup of water and add to flour mixture.


3. Stir until dough is soft and cleans the side of bowl. (Note: I used a food processor to mix the dough.)


4. Roll the pastry and use a cookie cutter to cut out circles more or less the size of your palm.


5. Place about 1 tablespoon of the beef mixture in the center of each circle (more if circles are larger) and fold the dough over, gently pressing the dough at the seam.


6. Seal the edges (In a pinch, use the tines of a fork, as I did here.).


7. Place the empanadas on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush each with a beaten egg yolk.


8. Also, don't forget to poke a few small holes or make small slits in the dough to allow the moisture inside to vent.


9. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

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If and when you embark on the mission of making homemade empanadas — well, let’s just say there’s ample time for bonding.

Postscript:

After my Tía Raquel read this post, she sent me these additional tips:

I should have mentioned you can add almost anything you like to the filling.  In Argentina it is common to add eggs (as you did) as well as olives and raisins.  It’s just a matter of taste.

I always roll the pastry between sheets of waxed paper instead of on a floured surface.  You will find that by not adding additional flour the crust is crispier and flakier.  The olive oil in the dough mixture is not absorbed with additional flour which makes the empanadas “fry” in the oven.

If you like a juicier filling, don’t cut slits to vent; enough vapor escapes from the edges to prevent them from splitting. You do need venting slits if you make a pie instead of individual empanadas.

Our mother used to make a beautiful braided edge to seal. I can flute the edges but I haven’t been able to master the braid. When I was little, I used to eat the crust only. I wasn’t interested in the filling and to this date the crust is my favorite part.