#FoodieExtravaganza ~ Argentine Beef Empanadas

Foodie Extravaganza is where we celebrate obscure food holidays by cooking and baking together with the same ingredient or theme each month.

Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you! If you're a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board!

This month Sue from Palatable Pastime invited us to make an Empanada recipe. 

This recipe makes a delicious, lightly spiced filling, stuffed with little bites of soft egg, and salty olives, and tender meat and veggies. My filling made quite a bit more than I needed for the amount of dough I had, so we used the leftover meat the next day in a loose meat sandwich which was also completely tasty!

This was my first adventure in the world of empanada making, and I should have used a fork to crimp along the edges as some of mine did pop open during baking. The original recipe I used as inspiration linked below highly recommends frying these - but I tend to bake whenever I can - mostly for the convenience factor!

We really enjoyed these savory little bite sized treats, and I would absolutely make them again!

Come see all our tasty empanada recipes that we're sharing with you today:

• Argentine Beef Empanadas from Making Miracles
• Beef Empanadas from Sneha's Recipe
• Easy Cornish Pasties from Food Lust People Love
• Easy Empanadas from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Empanadas de Atún (Argentinian Tuna Empanadas) from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Empanadas de Picadillo from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Indian Spiced Empanadas from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Spiced Potato Empanadas from Palatable Pastime

Argentine Beef Empanadas from Olivia's Cuisine

Ingredients

Filling
1 medium onion, chopped
1 TBS minced garlic (jarred)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced small (optional)
1 lb ground beef
10 green olives, pitted and finely chopped (I subbed kalamatas)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cumin
2 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Dough
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 large egg
1/3 cup very cold water
1 TBS distilled white vinegar

Directions

1. Combine the ground beef, onion, and bell pepper in a large nonstick skillet. Cook over medium to medium-high heat until vegetables are tender, and ground beef is browned. About 10 minutes. Add in the olives, paprika, cumin, and salt and pepper. Adjust seasonings to preference. Stir in chopped hardboiled eggs. 
2. Scrape mixture into a tupperware or bowl and refrigerate for an hour or two until fully chilled - this will help prevent mixture from being soggy when baked in the dough.
3. Prepare the dough. Combine the flour and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Using a pastry cutter, blend in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, cold water, and white vinegar. Pour liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and blend with a fork. Use your hands to finish blending ingredients and forming a dough ball. Flatten into a disc, wrap in saran wrap, and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour before rolling out.
5. When you are ready to assemble the empanadas - preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Either divide dough into about 12 pieces, roll out thinly into circular shapes and fill, or roll out dough and use a medium / large biscuit cutter or glass to cut rounds. (I used about a 3" biscuit cutter, and got about 18 empanadas out of that).
7. Fill by holding the disc in your hand and placing about a heaping TBS of filling in the center. Gently fold ends over the top and press to seal all the way around. 
8. Set filled empanadas on a baking sheet. You can use a fork to press around the sealed edge to help seal further if desired (I did not, and a few of mine popped open during baking).
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes, they should be golden brown on the bottoms. Flip and bake another 5 minutes until browned on both sides.
10. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce(s). Queso, sour cream, salsa, etc.