Hey, you! How are you today? I’m doing much better despite the problems we had this week (click here for the post).
We invited friends for lunch yesterday. When our ceiling problems started, I thought of cancelling our plans, but we were really disgusted. First because we love hosting at home and second because we don’t really know when we will see our friends again.
But the ceiling leak stopped, so we didn’t have to cancel anything. Yeah!!!
Our friends, S and E, are special to us. They currently live in Dubai. S is Filipino and went to college with the Husband. E is from France. His family live less than 10 kilometers away from us. I’ve always known S as a very nice and generous person. When we first met E (3 years ago), we got along very well. We spent time with them when they were dating, then we witnessed them getting married, and now they have a beautiful little baby girl. Every time they come to France, we make sure to reserve time for them. Even if it’s just an afternoon or a meal together. So yesterday was an invitation to have lunch at our home and E’s mom was invited as well.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many Filipinos here in Metz, France. A couple of years ago, I met N online. We made plans to meet up and we got along really well. Since then, we make a point to see each other. I invited her for lunch yesterday as well.
The Husband and I decided our lunch’s theme would be Filipino. I agreed as long as the dessert was my choice (and not necessarily Filipino). Part of the reason why is that I’m not a big fan of Filipino dessert. After some discussion, we settled on a beef dish (Empanadas), a pork dish (Liempo), a chicken dish (Chicken Afritada), and a noodle dish (Pancit). Thinking back, I don’t remember why I didn’t include a fish or seafood dish. I did however add some shrimps to the noodle dish.
Today, I thought I would share with you my recipe for Empanadas. I’ve already made some recently during our lunch with my French family (click here for the post).
Filipino Empanadas are quite easy to make honestly. Just make sure to include some patience to the recipe (to peel and dice all the vegetables). What I do is that I make them ahead. If it’s more than a day ahead, I freeze them. This time I made them Friday night for Saturday lunch, so I kept them in the refrigerator.
What’s great about Empanadas is that you can make them to your liking. The Husband likes them with raisins, but I don’t. So I didn’t add raisins (I’m the cook after all … LOL).
Filipino Empanadas
Ingredients:
250g ground beef
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
A handful of green peas (I used the frozen kind)
1 white onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
Olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
A dash of fish sauce
Salt
Black Pepper
Puff Pastry (I used the store-bought kind)
Egg Wash (1 egg yolk + a tablespoon of milk)
First of all, prepare all your ingredients.
Heat olive oil in your pan.
Add the onion and garlic to the pan. Cook until the onion turns translucent.
Add the ground beef to the pan. Cook until the beef browns.
Add the potatoes and carrots to the pan. Stir. I like to add a dash of salt at this point. Stir and continue to cook for 5 minutes.
Add the green peas. Stir and continue to cook for 5 minutes.
Season with soy sauce, fish sauce, salt, and black pepper.
At this point, I like to put a cover to the pan. Cook until the vegetables are completely cooked through.
Uncover. Taste to make sure if it is completely cooked through. Season with salt and black pepper if needed. Set aside.
Prepare your puff pastry. I like to put it on my kitchen counter and I make circles using my big tea cup. With the extra puff pastry, don’t hesitate to roll it and make circles again. Don’t waste food.
Get one of those circles and put a spoonful of the meat and vegetables mixture in the center.
Form a crescent by folding over one half of the crust to the other. Pinch the ends with your fingers.
With a fork, polish off the ends by pressing on them front and back and transfer the crescents to your baking dish.
With a fork, poke holes on the crescents. Then, brush some eggwash on them. Finally, I like to add a bit of salt on each crescent.
Bake in a 180 degrees Celsius preheated oven for 30 minutes. If you want to pre-cook them, bake 15 minutes on one side and set aside (when they are cooled transfer to freezer or refrigerator). Then on D-Day bake them in a 180 degrees Celsius preheated oven for 15 minutes. You may eat them hot from the oven or at room temperature. Enjoy!
As usual, I had prepared too much of the meat and vegetables mixture. No worries. I transferred that to a Tupperware and off it went to the freezer. This will be great with steamed white rice one of these days. 😊