Cooking Corner

We are lucky at TEM to often have International players join the club even if it is for a short time. This year one of our visitors is Juli Alonso from Argentina who has travelled to Australia with her (non-hockey playing) husband, Lucas.

They are sharing with us a typical South American recipe for Empanadas. Happy cooking!

The good thing about cooking EMPANADAS is that you can use anything for the filling, such as ham and cheese, chicken, lamb, tuna, corn, leftovers.. literally anything!

In this case, find a MEAT EMPANADAS recipe 😊

For the filling (30 MEAT EMPANADAS)

- 1 kg of Minced meat

- 2 red onions

- Olives

- Ground chili

- Salt and pepper

You should prepare your filling first and then let it cool down while attending the pastry.

* First, we cook the onions and spice them up with salt and pepper.

* After that, we proceed to cook the meat and spice it up with salt and ground chilli (you can also use paprika, cumin, garlic - depends on your taste!)

* Then we mix the spiced onions and meat with some olives and let them cool down (you can add some boiled eggs or even raisins to the filling).

For the pastry:

- You are allowed (and very welcome) to use Frozen Shortcrust Pastry - the pack of 5 sheets will let you make 20 EMPANADAS. I used 2 packs for 40 🙌🏾

- I used a yogurt top to cut each sheet into 4 circles - yes, they need to be circles!

Prepare and bake:

#TIP: you can also fry them! 🤤

* Put a good tablespoon (or two) of the meat filling in the centre of each round or EMPANADA disk.

* Fold the EMPANADA disk and use your fingers to seal the edges. To form the flea, turn and fold the edges of the patties with your fingers. Another option is to use a fork to press and seal the edges of each disk.

* If you have time, refrigerate the empanadas for 30 minutes to an hour, this will help them to be well sealed. You can also prepare and assemble them the day before and bake them just before serving.

* Preheat oven to 400F (200C) for medium-sized empanadas, or 375F (190F) for smaller empanadas.

* Place the empanadas on a baking sheet, lightly greased.

* You can paint the empanadas with beaten egg mixture; this will give them a golden colour when baked.

* Bake EMPANADAS at 400F for ~ 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

* Finally, serve the empanadas hot, alone or with the sauce of your choice