- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and
today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making delicious empanadas. So let's get started! First off, we have some prep work to do. All our veggies need to get
chopped into smaller pieces, starting with mincing
three cloves of garlic. Today we're making some
amazing beef empanadas, but you can use any kind of meat in here. There are so many different
flavor combinations, and a lot of them vary
from place to place. So empanadas are actually, like, originally from Spain and Portugal, but they became popularized
throughout Latin America, and I don't know, they're
just delicious little pockets you can grab and go. I'm gonna chop two potatoes up, and once again, I want smaller pieces, so this is a finer chop
than you might be used to. So you don't want a giant piece of potato or carrot sticking out. I'm giving my carrots a halfhearted
peel, just a little bit. They really don't need it,
but I can't help myself. Chop those carrots up, too. Same goes for the celery, and
some of you might be thinking, "Hmm, celery, hey?" But it adds a lot of
flavor, it cooks down, you're not gonna have any
crunchy texture from it, and it's really delicious. And finally, one onion. I saved it for last so I
wouldn't have any tears while I was doing all
the rest of the chopping. Disregard the knife placement on my head. Give that onion a nice chop, and we're gonna be on to the cooking. Grab a big pan, one
tablespoon of olive oil or so. While my oil heats up over medium heat, I wanna talk about the
meat for these empanadas. Today I'm using half a
pound of ground chuck. You could use any meat you want in this, so ground turkey, ground
chicken, ground pork. They all work, even a combination. Just make sure it's not too lean. This is an 85/15 mixture, so if you're using chicken, for example, make sure it's, like, dark meat included, because it gets us rubbery when you're cooking lean meat like that. My oil is nice and hot. It's definitely rippling
and dancing in the pan. So I'm gonna add in my beef, the celery, the potato, the onion, and the carrot, basically everything
except for the garlic. Grab a wooden spoon. My cookbook is available for preorder. There's a link in the
description box below. Grab a copy, grab a copy,
grab a copy, grab a copy. And now we're gonna break the meat up and cook this for about eight minutes until the veggies are,
you know, softened up and the meat is browned. That's important. And empanada, by the way,
literally translates to breaded. Like, pan is bread in Spanish. Empanada. So it's a delicious filling held together with a breaded exterior,
and they are so good when you make them at home. This is like my ideal
combination of meat and veggies, so it's a lot of veggies
with some meat mixed in for flavor and protein. And we're gonna be
adding all the spices in after this has cooked a
little bit, so don't worry. It's not gonna be bland. I can see some of you at
home like, "Um, excuse me. This looks completely bland right now." It won't be. So as we cook this down, you're seeing it looks really glossy, and what's happening is, the potatoes are releasing
some of their starch, and they're gonna give
you a delicious flavor, a delicious mouthfeel, and they're gonna hold
things together a little bit so it doesn't all crumble
out when you take a bite. This is almost ready. I want my veggies to be
softened a little bit and the meat to be browned through. Now we're gonna add in
our delicious garlic. Get that all in there. A tablespoon of tomato paste. It could be a generous tablespoon. A teaspoon of cumin. A teaspoon of chili powder. 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon. This adds a wonderful flavor, and cinnamon's great
in savory dishes, too, so don't be afraid to try it out. It really goes well with a lot of meats. And about 1/2 a teaspoon of ground pepper. Ooh, this smells ah-maze-ing. Let's give that a stir and
cook for about two minutes so the garlic and the
spices really have a chance to get their full flavor out. Add your 1/2 cup of peas in, and now we're gonna cook this
for an additional minute. Then we're gonna take this off heat, let that cool down a bit,
and make our empanada dough. And if you want, you can
transfer this to a bowl or a plate so it cools down even faster. I have to ask my mom what
her favorite filling is. Let's see if she answers. - Hi, John.
- Hi! How are you? - Good, how are you?
- Good. So guess what I just made today? - (gasps) Empanadas!
(John chuckles) - I'm filming YouTube videos today, but I wanted to know if there was, like, a favorite flavor you had for the filling. - [Mom] I used to cook a lot with fruit, with apricots and raisins. - Ooh, that sounds like
a delicious combination. - [Mom] I wish I could taste it. They look so delicious!
- Aw. Thanks, Mom. Bye, Mom! I love you. - I love you.
- Mwah. She always answers a FaceTime. (snickers) Before you start the dough,
preheat your oven to 375. This comes together really quickly, and you need that oven nice and hot. Into the bowl of my food processor I'm adding three cups or 360
grams of all-purpose flour, 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. I'm just gonna pulse this
up to mix the salt in. You could definitely make
this by hand if you want, but this is an instance
where the food processor is your friend and makes it so easy. If you're doing it by
hand, just whisk it up. And now I want 3/4 of a cup or 170 grams of cold unsalted butter. I'm gonna cut this into small pieces and then just blend it in. We wanna give this butter a head start. That's why we're chopping it into pieces. If you just tossed giant
pieces or blocks of butter in, it would definitely get over-mixed, and that would not be flaky and delicious. Now I'm gonna add the top back on, and we're gonna pulse this butter until the mixture is crumbly. If you were doing this by hand, you would use a pastry
cutter or your hands, just like when you make pie dough, and break it up into small pieces. The way I wrote this recipe, you have three cups of flour
in your food processor, and that's something most
food processors can handle, but if you wanna make
the full 18 empanadas, you'll make two batches of the dough. So you can either double it up if you have a big food processor like me, or you can freeze the filling
and make empanadas later. The filling will keep for two months in the freezer really easily. Just make sure it's an airtight container. Never reach your hands
into a food processor. Learned that the hard way. You can see right here we
really have a crumbly mixture. This looks great. Now we're gonna add one
egg and 1/3 cup of water. This will hold it together. Egg is also a binding
agent, so this is the glue that'll hold our empanada together. We're gonna pulse this
until a ball of dough forms. So you can see that we're
getting bigger and bigger chunks, and now we have a big
ball of dough on the side. That lets me know, "I'm ready." Grab that dough from the food processor. Now we're gonna cut it in half and work with half of the dough at a time. Lightly flour your surface. Very light. Because you want the dough
to be kinda sticky still, but it shouldn't be too sticky. The other thing is to grab a rolling pin, and I happen to have this rolling pin that has bumpers on it, removable bumpers. Some of them are 1/4,
some of them are 1/8, and I bought it on vacation, thinking, "Hm, I'm never gonna use this again." I just needed a rolling
pin because I was baking. And it's become one of my favorite go-tos, because I honestly don't know exactly what 1/8 of an inch is, but now I do with my rolling pin. We're gonna roll out half of our dough. Just keep it moving,
because you don't want it to stick to the surface. A pastry mat, it makes everything
so easy when you're trying to get dough that comes off
the counter and doesn't stick. It's like if you were ever
making a pie, for example, and it's a summer day, and it
just starts melting the dough. You can lift the whole thing
up, pop it into the fridge, and come back to it in a few minutes. We want our empanadas to
be about six-inch circles, and I don't have a six-inch cookie cutter. This is the closest thing I have. Hi. It is almost five inches. So you have a couple options. You can use what you have
and roll it out a bit bigger or find a bowl or
something that's six inches and use that to cut. I'm gonna try the bowl. But I'm also gonna add a little
bit of flour onto the rim so it's a bit less sticky. Lift it off after you cut just so you know that it won't stick. And as you can tell, we definitely need to re-roll the dough, because you're gonna have a lot of scraps. (John humming) Keep cutting and rolling. We should end up with 12 empanadas or so. Very awkward cutting with a
bowl, but it really works. My filling is basically on
the warm side of room temp, and now we're going to
assemble our empanadas. Grab your empanada. I also have a little bit of water here just in case the dough is
not sticking to itself, but I think it will. We're gonna add in about two tablespoons of the filling right in the middle. You wanna be generous, but
you can't overfill them. Otherwise, they'll burst. They won't shut. They'll be so annoying. Now we're going to seal it shut. That looks like a giant wonton, so we're gonna make this
into an empanada now by sealing the edge properly. I swear, I am not the best at this. But once you do a couple of them, you'll get the hang of it, and you can do the traditional cute fold, which I'm gonna try, or you could just use
a fork to seal it shut, and I'll show you both ways. Now we're gonna close it up,
and as we go, we're gonna fold. So I'm kinda folding and
pinching as we go along. Come to me in the comments and let me know what
your tricks are for this. I usually do the fork way, but I want them to be cute for you. So this is, like, my
empanada attempt here. So if you're doing the fork
method, this is so easy. And you can let me know
which way you like better. Repeat that for the remaining empanadas, and if you have any
extra filling left over, this is great with some scrambled eggs in the morning as a hash, or you can store it in the fridge and make some more empanadas the next day. Just whip up some more of the dough. My empanadas are almost ready to bake, but I want them to be
golden brown and delicious, so I'm beating one egg in
a bowl for an egg wash, and I'm gonna place
these on my baking sheet and brush them up. So I'm just gonna seal those
edges a little bit more if they're coming apart,
and the egg wash will help. And brush it all over. These are gonna go into the oven, 375, for about 30 to 35 minutes or
until they are golden brown. In you go. My empanadas are out of the oven. I wish you could smell this. When you make these at
home, they are so delicious. They're piping hot right now, but I'm gonna risk the
burn and have one anyways. That's so delicious, and this
shell is mindbogglingly good. Oh, my God. It's rich, delicious, crisp, and amazing. I hope you had a chance
to make this recipe, and if you liked this video,
check out my Latin playlist.
