Empanadas

Its been awhile since I did a food post, so I thought I'd give you a recipe for empanadas that my family loves. The filling looks weird, but it tastes great! I give credit to Cathy, a former co-worker for the recipe.


Ingredients:

1 pound of ground chicken or 3 diced chicken breasts (you can also use beef or shrimp)
white pepper and red pepper
1 small can of tomato paste
1 small can of tomato sauce
mexican 4 cheese (we like the sargento better than kraft)
goya discos (found in the spanish frozen section at the supermarket)
1 tbsp olive oil


First, remove your discos from the freezer, so they can defrost. Sprinkle your diced chicken with white and red pepper. The more you use, the spicier, so sprinkle at your discretion. Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the chicken until browned.


After the chicken is browned, add tomato paste and tomato sauce. Stir well. It will look like a goopy mess, like this:





Turn off the heat and place filling into a large bowl. Add the package of cheese and mix well. We use the whole package because we like them cheesy! Let the mixture cool for a half hour or so. It will look like this:





When the mixture is cooled, sppon some mixture onto a disco. Don't overfill or you'll have a heck of a time closing it.





Fold the disco over and close edges with a fork. Some people prefer to use their fingers, but I like the fork closure. This is Pi's favorite part and she's a pro at closing the empanadas.




If you want to be healthy bake your empanadas at 350 degrees until the disco is browned. If you like them the traditional (ie: unhealthy) way, you can fry them in hot oil. We like them fried so we use olive oil to be a little healthier than corn or vegetable oil. It will literally take less than 60 seconds to brown each side in oil.

Viola! With some rice on the side, this is crowd pleaser everytime. Even my non-spanish anonymous hubby likes these!