How to Make Pastellios

Are you tired of eating the same dishes every week? If you have some time (approximately 5 hours from start to clean up) you can make this tasty entrée that your whole family will enjoy. It is a bit of work so be prepared to stay in the kitchen the whole time but it will be well worth it. The best part is that you can freeze some for another night’s dinner.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• For the meat:
• ½ small onion
• 1 ½ tbsp. garlic
• ½ of a green pepper
• ½ tbsp. of Adobo (found in the Spanish aisle)
• 1 tsp. of salt
• One 8 oz can of tomato sauce
• Green olives pitted
• 1 lb of lean hamburger meat
• Corn or vegetable oil
• For the dough:
• Flour
• Water
• Salt

How to Make Pastellios

1. Put the ground beef in a deep pot on the stove. Cover the pot and cook on medium for about 15 minutes. After most of the meat turns brown, drain the juices of the meat while keeping the meat in the pot. Now you can raise the temperature to almost high in order to cook it thoroughly.
2. Chop the onion, garlic and pepper into fine pieces by putting cubed pieces into a mixer or blender. Sauté these spices in a small pot filled with about two tablespoons of oil. Add the sauce, salt and Adobo and mix well. When done, add this mixture to the meat and mix well again. Add the olives to the meat and stir. You will be using two olives for every 3 tablespoons of meat so use your judgment when adding the olives and, of course, you can always add more or you can remove some if needed.
3. Set aside the meat and create the dough. The dough is made by starting with 2 cups of water, add one teaspoon of salt, check the taste of the water and add more salt or water to taste. Mix in a dough mixer or one that can handle mixing dough. Add flour until it creates a dough that is not sticky.
4. Roll out a circle that is 8 inches in diameter and is about 1/8 of an inch thick. Place about 3 tablespoons of meat in the middle of the circle. Place two green olives in the meat. Wet ½ of the circle with water by dipping your fingers into a cup filled with water and rubbing it along ½ of the circle edge. Flip the dry side of the circle to meet the wet side and press with a fork all around the crescent.
5. Pour oil in a deep frying pan. Use enough so that the pastellios float when frying. When the oil is hot enough to fry carefully, place the pastellio in the oil. After you put the pastellio into the oil flip it about 10 seconds later so the pastellio does not swell and get a bubble. Allow one side to brown and then flip it. When the other side is browned, take it out and drain it on a paper towel.

Tips & Warnings

• You can make a perfect half circle by rolling a small dish around the closed pastellio before frying it.
• Remember that the meat is already cooked so you really don’t need to fry the pastellio that long, just enough to brown both sides.
• To make things run smoothly, before you start frying place the pastellios on a floured baking pan and ,when the pan is filled, place it in the freezer until you have another pan filled up with pastellios.
• Be careful when biting into them. They are extremely hot.
• Cut them in half and let them cool before serving