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Colombian Style Empanadas
Ingredients
Dough
- 2 cups masa
- 1 ½ cups warm water
- sprinkle of adobo with sazon and tumeric for color
Filling
- ½ lb ground beef
- ½ red and green pepper diced
- 1-2 large potato peeled and diced
- ½ diced onion
- 1-2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 tbsp chicken bouillon more or less depending on your preference
- salt
- 1-2 tbsp adobo con sazon I use the one from la flor, but if you do not have you can use the regular adobo and a packet of sazon
- 1 cup fresh parsley chopped
- 2 tbsp achoite oil
- vegetable or canola oil for frying
Instructions
Masa Prep
- In a bowl , combine masa, sazon and tumeric. Gradually stir in warm water to make a dough. Let sit covered while you make the filling, or at least 15 minutes to activate the masa dough.
Filling
- In a small pot, place water and some chicken bouillon and the potato and bring to a boil. Do not boil till mush, just parboil so it can hold its shape and will continue to cook with the meat.
- In a pan, pour some achiote oil. Once heated add onions, peppers, tomatoes, and parsley. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
- Then add beef and seasoning (garlic powder and adobo with sazon) and cook partially through
- Add the potatoes to the beef and continue to cook through.
Assembly
- Take a portion of the masa (about a handful size and place it between two pieces of wax paper (or ziplock bags whatever you have that wont stick) and roll out the masa to your desired thickness.
- Add about a tablespoon of the filling to the center. Use the ziplock to fold over the masa dough to seal the empanada into the shape of a halfmoon.
- use a rounded edge, like a bowl or a cup, to seal and round the edges. Squeeze any seams you see that may be open.
- In preheated vegetable oil, carefully place the empanada to deep fry. They should be a golden yellow color once ready, do not over fry as they will dry out.
Video
My Love of Empanadas
In my opinion, empanadas are a universal food that can be found in some way or form in every single culture. Latin American countries across the board have their own variations, some of which landed in the Philippines, which I am desperate to learn one of my Tita’s Filipino Empanada, but she refuses to share the recipe lol! But also, across different cultures like the Polish Pierogi, Japanese Gyoza, Chinese Dumpling, or the Italian Calzone or “panzerotti” are all extremely similar to the infamous empanada.
Growing up in Sunset Park, the Caribbean style of empanada was the predominant one I would eat of the Puerto Rican and Dominican variety. But, there was this one place on the corner of 47th and 4th that made the BEST little Colombian empanadas and I very easily became obsessed. So, imagine my surprise, years later, when I moved to New Jersey that the are I live in has a large Colombian community. There is quite literally a Colombian restaurant on every other block, if not two on the same.
And thus, my love of the Colombian empanada continued. But, there was a time where I did not live close to these delicious little delicacies. So, I thought, for those of you who do not have access readily available, here is my version of the Colombian empanada.
Colombian Inspired…
I reiterate that this is my version. That is because it is not the TRADITIONAL Colombian empanada because typically you will find either shredded chicken or shredded beef in there. I unfortunately did not have the luxury of time to prepare a tender shredded beef, so I went the lazy way and used what I had – ground beef. This did not at all sacrifice the flavor- it was still very much delicious. But if you have the time, I would suggest making it the traditional way. I can find you some traditional recipes I recommend should you need, just send a comment.
Serving this as an appetizer is a great idea. I would highly recommend serving this with a dipping sauce. Typically in the Colombian bakeries I frequent, two sauces are provided. One is a ketchup and mayo combo, aka pink sauce. The other is called “hogao” which is, in my opinion, the Colombian version of pico de gallo. It consists of tomato, onion, scallion, cilantro, peppers, and salt and pepper. I might be missing some ingredients but the one I use is from The Spruce Eats and it is delishh!
