First of all how awesome is Latin food? Definitely one of my favourite go to delicacies. Unfortunately due to lock down one of my favourite local restaurants are closed. They make some of the best Argentinean Empanada's I've ever had!
So tonight Lil Miss and I decided to give our hand at making some ourselves. We didn't have any pastry so we used something else, make sure to read all the way to the end to find out what it was.
So first of all you need to get yourself some unborn chickens 🤣 preferably ones with smile faces on them so you don't feel as bad from eating a species unborn children. Oh buy they taste so nice! Boil them in some lightly salted water until they're hard boiled.
Then you want to chop up a brown onion, into a hot pan with olive oil until it becomes translucent, add 3 gloves of crushed garlic for 30 seconds or until fragrant then 1kg of beef, salt and pepper and break up and fry until browned.
Now it's pretty easy from here, you want to add 2 table spoons ground Cumin, I love Cumin, it's the best! One table spoon paprika, one to two table spoons oregano and one and a half cups of beef stock.
Give it all a bit of a mix through, reduce heat to a simmer and let cook for 20 to 30 minutes until the liquid has all but evaporated, remember to stir occasionally so the bottom doesn't burn.
While that's simmering your eggs should be ready to remove from stove, drain let cool or run cold water over them. Peel and then dice up.
Now onto the hack
Now, traditionally these bad Boyz are put into some pastry, but I can not be bothered putting them into pastry and I didn't have any around so I used some wraps. Pop the meat, egg and I put in some mozzarella cheese. You can also add chilli, olives, peas what ever you like. But I have a fussy 4 and 1 year old to appeal to and getting food into them is not the easiest thing. Lil Miss loves mince meat because she thinks it looks like worms.
If you're good at wraps they're really good at holding everything in. Roll slightly fold the sides in, keep rolling and then finish up with another fold in and straight onto the toaster.
Toast until golden brown this way the cheese melts all the way through and at this stage the wraps aren't unfolding.
It's not the traditionally way to make them but it is alot of fun and easier than working with pastry. They're also great to wrap in aluminium foil and can be reheated again tomorrow on the toaster. As my wife has a morning shift tomorrow I'll have some prepared for her to take for lunch tomorrow.
The flavour of the meat is absolutely delicious after simmering away in the Cumin and Paprika. For added sweetness you can add a table spoon of sugar and switch ground paprika for sweet paprika.
Either way a wonderful quick and easy dinner the whole family will enjoy!
Got another good recipe I should try? Let me know in the comments section below.