(This post is image heavy, I put a jump where most of the article is hiding. Don’t forget to hit *read more*!)

This is a favorite latin meat-pie and comes in several varieties all across the Spanish world. 98% of spanish countries have a version of this and the name varies as well. The white folk call them empanadas.
Being the crazy rican from NY I am, we call them pastelillos (sorta said  like ba-ste-lee-jos because we mix Y and J sounds the way the japanese mix R and L, and we pronounce our p’s more softly than in english).

Anyway. I sat down with Madre and we had a little cooking lesson on this easy to make and delicious meal.

What you need.

First, your ingredients. You need a ground meat of choice: traditionally beef, but we use 99% fat free ground chicken to be a little healthier. Turkey, pork, or lamb can be used, too. The filling is called “picadillo” and can be as simple or crazy as you want. For time and learning, though, we’re going with a basic chicken filling.

Second, you need dough for the crust. The lazy way is to go to the store and buy goya’s discos pre-made (frozen food isle.) If you’d rather make it yourself or can’t find them, the dough is very easy to make. Check out this recipe that uses very basic household ingredients to make it.

Lastly, your spices for the meat. Some of these may be hard to find if you live in extremely back-country areas, but if your town / city has mexicans (and most do), you’ll probably be able to locate most of this.

Cilantro, tomato sauce, garlic, sofrito (either jarred or the packets), garlic salt, and oregano. You’ll also need olive oil and your deep-frying oil of choice.

Step one.
First thing you’re gonna do is cook your meat, well done.
Crush the garlic (using a pilon/ mortor+pistol). Drizzle a tsp of olive oil in a pot and sautee the garlic a bit first to tone down the flavor, 2-3 minutes. Once you see the edges brown a bit, dump in your meat and use a wooden spatula to break it up into small pieces.

Assuming you’re using one basic pack of meat, this should be enough. Put in a few springs of cilantro, half a baby-can of the tomato sauce, a tea-spoon of the jarred sofrito, or one packet, and a few shakes of garlic salt. The salt depends on your tastes, some people are sodium freaks, some not so much.

Let the meat cook fully, stirring occasionally. Keep in mind chicken cooks slowly while beef cooks fast.

Step Two.

Dedicate some space to work with. If you bought the dough-disks, remove them from the packets and lay them out on your surface.
If you’re home-making the dough, do your thing, flatten them out and cut out 5″ disks. Then spread them out flat on your surface.

Step Three.

Once your meat is fully cooked, start spooning about 1/4 cup of meat onto each ring of dough. Don’t use too much, overstuffing them makes them really difficult to close later. Make sure you have about an inch of extra dough around the outside of the meat. You need this to close them later.
This is pretty simple. Start with smaller amounts if you’re not sure, it also lets you make sure you have enough for each. Go back and add more if you need.

Step Four.
Now you’re going to fold each dough ring in half over the meat. This takes a little practice, as the stuffing will be temperamental and move around a bit. No worries, though, just be patient. You’ll get the hang of it quick.
Once you’ve folded it over, take your finger tips and apply pressure to the outside to close the empanada. The last part of this is to take a fork and press down around the edges to really seal the dough and trap the meat inside.
Do this for all of them and you’re ready to go! (This is also the point where you can pack some up to freeze to cook later!).

Step Five.
Get a serving pan or bowl and line the bottom with 2 layers of paper towels.  You need this to absorb the extra oil (unless you’re gross and ok with it.)

Now it’s time to fry them, and you can do this two ways. If you’ve got a deep fryer, that’s your best bet. Set it to medium-high (you don’t need to cook the meat, you just wanna cook the crust to get in nice and cripsy).  Dunk your delicious meat-pies into their hellish end, and wait til the outside is a nice golden-brown. Then remove.
If you’ve got a standard frying pan, have enough oil to cover one complete side. Simply brown once side, then flip it to the other and they’ll be done in no-time.

Step Six.
Let it rest for at least 15 minutes unless you wanna ruin your mouth.
Eat and enjoy.