Baked Chicken Empanada

Ingredients:

For the Dough

3 Cups of All Purpose Flour

8 tbsps COLD Water (with ice)

1 225g (Whole Bar)  of Unsalted Butter (cubes)

Extra Flour for Dusting

Cooking Materials:

Rolling Pin

Measuring Spoons

Measuring Cup

Cookie Sheet or aluminum tray or non stick baking tray

Weighing Scale (Optional)

Mixeir (Optional)

Deep Mixing Bowl

BBQ Brush (Don't use painting Brush, Please!)

Convection Oven 

1. Make sure you "ADD" a little patience on making this dough. Using your hand, try to slowly mix everything altogether until you create a ball.

2. on a clean and dry table, dust the surface with flour, and knead (massage) the dough using your bare hands to make sure everything is mixed evenly.

3. Set aside, or chill.

For the Filling:

Chicken Breast/Chicken Thigh 1/2kg Chicken Thigh : 1/2 Chicken breast

Raisins (you can put as much as these...)

Ground Black Pepper

Potatoes (sliced in little cubes), you can put as much of these, it will not make your filling dry

White Onions (Sliced in little cubes)

Red Bell pepper (Sliced in little cubes)

2 tsp Brown Sugar

Soy Sauce

Curry Powder (optional)

Carrots (Cubes, optional)

Oil for sauteing

Egg White (for the Egg Wash)

Chili Powder (optional)

1. Boil Chicken first, until done, let it cool for few minutes, remove meat, shred. You can use a fork in doing this or bare hands, whatever method you want to use for as long as it will make everything easy.

2. Set aside the chicken stock.

3. On a separate pan, add oil, Saute onions, red bell pepper, potatoes and raisins ( until well done. Add Black ground pepper and brown sugar.

4. Add in the shredded chicken meat. You can pour our saved chicken stock every now and then so it will not make the filling dry. Make sure the filling will not be "Saucy" to prevent ripping of our wrapper (Dough). Some other people uses oil to make it moist, however I want it a little "oil free" home made empanada for home consumption. 

5. I always include curry powder to give it a little kicky spice... Dash some!

6. Set aside and let it cool. 

FILLING/ FOLDING/ WRAPPING

1. Again, knead your dough.

2. make sure, you have a clean flat table for kneading. 

3. Dust your table and rolling pin with flour.

4. Sizes of Empanadas:

    4.1 3 tbsp of filling- Form a ball for your dough, GOLF BALL size (about 5-6 inches big)

    4.2 2 tbsp of filling-Form a ball for your dough, about the size of a LYCHEE. (a little smaller)

5. Preparing the wrapper, dust your table with flour, flatten the dough ball, dust again with flour on top of the dough, then start rolling.

6. We want to achieve the thinnest wrapper as we can but not ripping it off by wrapping. I hope you get my point here. 

7. Slowly peel the rolled wrapper and place wrapper onto a non-stick pan or a plate (for bigger empanadas), or place the wrapper onto your palm (for smaller empanadas)

8. Fill the wrapper with prepared filling, seal the ends by pinching using your fingers. (make sure you have about 0.75-1inch size of excess wrapper skins on the ends)

9. People separate/familiarize their empanada viands by the folds or how you make it creative in sealing the ends. 

       9.1 By using a fork, place the   empanada on a flat surface, press the ends to seal. 

       9.2 With the curled style, (refer to my pictures), pinch the first end then twist until you reach the other end.    

       9.3 Prick  the surface of the empanadas to let the steam come out. 

10. Brush the top with Egg white (Egg Wash)     

11. Place the turnovers on a baking sheet.

12. Preheat oven to 350f (176c) then bake for 50-60mins or until Golden Brown. 

13. Once cooked, cool everything on a rack, then serve Hot!

TIPS!

1. To preserve, you can prepare lots of these and place everything on your freezer for  months! 

2. You can also use other fillings like, tuna, corned beef, left over adobo, kuchay and curried potatoes!

3. With my dough recipe... you will love every bite of it...!

4. If you want to make a Whole Wheat Dough wrapper, you may do this ratio 3/4 cups of Wheat Flour and 2 1/4 cups of All Purpose Flour!

5. You can also try frying these if you don't have an oven at home. 

I love doing this over and over again! I hope that you will love this as much as I do!