Welcome back to my little corner of the internet.
Today, I felt like making empanadas. This type of Spanish pie is a staple in Spain. The most common versions are with minced meat or tuna. Here I will share the tuna recipe I used for my empanada.
Empanadas can be small moon shaped pies or, to save time, simple rectangular shapes.
A bit of history, on the empanada. For a very long time, I thought it was something typical for Latin America, but the empanada was a Spanish dish, precisely from Galicia, a region in the North of Spain (the place with Santiago de Compostela). However, the empanada is even older. Before the Arabs brought this dish to Spain, empanadas were already baked in Ancient Greece and even before that, it was made in Persia. There it was known as “esfigha” or “fatay”, little cakes made from bulgur and filled with meat. You could say that they used to resemble modern Kofte. Actually, using some sort of dough and filling it with meats or vegetables and then bake it in the oven is a dish you can find in cuisine all over the world.
But enough history class, here’s my easy recipe
Ingredients:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1/2 c capers, washed
1/2 c green olives, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp paprika
400 g canned tuna (I used the one in oil)
1/2 lemon, juice of
1 tbsp oregano
salt
pepper
2 packages of empanada dough
Heat the oil in a skillet and fry the onions and garlic in it until soft. Add the peppers and cook until soft and lightly brown (approximately 10 minutes). Add the paprika, the capers and the olives. Mix well and cook about 5 minutes more.
Now add the tuna and the oregano. Mix well and cook for 5 more minutes. Remove from the heat.
Now heat the oven to 200º C (390º F). Roll out the empanada dough on a baking tray. Pour the filling on top of one sheet of dough and level out the filling more or less evenly. Cover with the second dough. Use a fork to press the edges and prevent leaking.
You can brush the top with some egg to get a nice and shiny surface. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
Serve hot or cold.
Do you like empanadas? Which one is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below.
Love,
Raffi
Raffi Matcha 