Chicken Empanadas

Chicken Empanadas

Jan 20, 2017

Pretty happy with how these turn out 🙂 First time ever. At the beginning I thought the chicken was too spicy, too sweet but once it cooled down it tasted a lot like how I remember it in Peru. Started around 11am and finished (kind of, there’s still a lot of dough left but I didn’t have enough chicken) around 3pm. I was exhausted. But had fun along the way while I multitasked between getting laundry done and cleaning around.

The ingredients

Dough:

  • 4 cups of flour

  • ½ cup of margarine or butter

  • ½ cup of vegetable shortening

  • ¾ cup of liquid (mixed with evaporated milk + water and one egg whisk together)

  • 1 tsp of salt

  • Icing sugar (optional, to be used at the end)

To close the empanadas:

  • 1 egg yolk (glaze)

  • A bit of milk or water

Chicken filling:

  • 1½ cup of chopped red onion

  • ¼ cup of oil (approximately)

  • ½ k (1lb 2 oz) chicken pieces (can be chicken breast, thigh)

  • Salt

  • Pepper

  • Paprika

  • 1 tbsp of aji amarillo paste

  • 3 boiled eggs cut in quarter pieces

  • Pieces of olive (optional, i personally don’t use it)

  • Cornstarch to thicken

  • 3 Limes (at the end for garnish)

And now the fun part starts!

Steps

Dough

  1. Sift the flour into a big mixing bowl

  2. Add in the margarine/butter and shortening using two forks. As the butter and shortening blends with the flour, it will end up looking like thick sand with lots of lumps.

  3. Slowly pour in the liquid as you mix. Form the dough with your fingers. Wrap it up and let it stand in the fridge for at least 1 hr.

Chicken Filling

  1. Heat a medium pot, add some oil. When oil is heated, stir in the onion and let them brown. Then add the chicken pieces. Brown and flip to cook evenly.

  2. Add the aji amarillo sauce, some salt and pepper to taste along with a dash of paprika. Set to medium and cover the lid for 15 to 20min. Checking and flipping.

  3. Once chicken is all cooked I like to shred it. So the flavours can blend even more. Add a tsp of cornstarch to thicken the mix. Set aside

Assembling the empanadas

  1. Preheat oven to 200ºC/400ºF

  2. Take the dough from the fridge. Grabbing a small part of the dough, start rolling it out on a floured surface until you can cut out a circle about 6 inches in diameter or size of your hand. Continue until all the dough is used

  3. Then add 2 big spoonfuls of the chicken filling onto the dough add a piece of egg. With your fingers dip some egg yolk, water or milk onto the edges of the circle. Then fold the top with the bottom to close the empanada. Pinch them together so it closes. You can use a fork to seal them or press the edges and fold to make like a braid like effect.

  4. Then brush the egg yolk mix on the surface of the empanada. It will give it a nice golden effect when baked.

  5. Repeat for each empanada. Once you have all of them, transfer to oven. Bake for 20-25 min.

  6. Let it cool for 10 minutes. Sprinkle some powder sugar on top and squeeze a bit of lime juice on top while eating

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