How to Make Empanadas or Baked Turnovers

The original sandwiches - empanadas, Cornish pasties, meat pies, turnovers - most cultures have a variation of these turnovers, sandwiches with the bread cooked around the filling. A thrifty and tasty way to use leftovers.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup ice water (approximate)
• Rolling Pin
• Large Baking Sheet
• Pastry Brush
• Water for brushing on edges
• Filling

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Get filling ready in a bowl and set aside. Ingredients must be pre-cooked, but they can be cold. This is a good way to use leftover meats and vegetables. Chopped cooked meats combined with vegetables, potatoes, gravy - refried beans with grated cheese and strips of hot pepper - chopped ham and cheese. Think of this as a sandwich with the bread baked around it. In the photographs, I used leftover chopped venison steak, mashed potatoes, peas and a little bit of gravy.

3. Sift together into a bowl: flour, baking powder, and salt. Add shortening and cut into the flour as you would for pie dough. When the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, continue mixing as you add enough water to hold the dough together. Squeeze the ball of dough to get it to hold together, then divide it into 12 relatively even pieces.

4. 
    
   Rolling out a round of pastry dough.

   Form each piece into a ball, and roll out on floured board to make a round about 3 to 4 inches in diameter. These do not have to be exactly smooth circles unless you are making these for a cooking competition - they will taste the same even if they're slightly off round (mine have pretty ragged edges - it doesn't hurt them).

5. 
    
   See how ragged my round is? It works anyway.

   Lay the round on a nonstick baking sheet (or a greased regular baking sheet) and moisten the outer margin with water and pastry brush. I have a small dish of water by the baking sheet. This will let you pinch a good tight seal in the next step so the filling doesn't run out.

6. 
    
   Fill, fold and seal.

   Place a rounding tablespoon of filling on one half of the round. Fold the other half over and press the edges together to seal the filling in.

7. 
    
   Ready to pop in the oven.

   Continue rolling each piece into a round and filling. All 12 empanadas should fit on a large baking sheet.

8. 
    
   Golden brown and done.

   Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 to 30 minutes.

Tips & Warnings

• These can be eaten cold the next day like sandwiches (in fact, such meat pies were originally made long ago so men could carry a lunch with them into the fields).
• This pastry can also be used to make a fruit turnover, with a sprinkling of sugar on the crust while they're hot. A filling can be made of stewed dried fruit or preserves (my grandmother made one with stewed dried apricots). Again, think of it as a sandwich.
• These were originally deep fried (including the apricot fried pies my grandmother made). In today's health-conscious world, I've learned that they work just as well baked, without the guilt over what you're doing to your arteries (of course, my grandfather loved these and he lived 103 years in good health).

[FrazzledNanny]

on 1/28/2009 Thanks for the great recipe. This looks great. 5* RRC