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Empanada Pie


Best potluck idea ever? An all-pie meal, appropriately titled Piefest! Guests each bring a savory or sweet pie, and the gluttony will commence. This was my addition to the spread.

I have been craving beef empanadas, those little, meaty hand pies from across Latin America. To stick with the Piefest theme, I decided to modify the presentation to 9" pie plate style. Wikipedia says that this is the preferred presentation in areas of Spain, so I'm not the first to venture there, which was reassuring.

Enough ground beef to fill a pie plate seemed like overkill, so I decided to round out the filling with spiced, diced potatoes. While I was riffing on the empanada filling from Mexican Cooking for Dummies, I kind of made up this recipe as I went. The following is a list of the ingredients for posterity, rather than exact measurements... tweak at your will.

Beef and Potato Empanada Pie
First: steam fry the potatoes

In a frying pan, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil

When hot, add:
1 lb potatoes, chopped into 1/4" cubes (I used baby yellow potatoes from my produce box, but any type should do)
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp spanish smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ancho chili powder

After the onions are soft and potatoes have started to get a crust, add the juice of 1 can of Rotel and 1/4 cup of water, and put on the pan lid to steam. When the potatoes are soft, remove the lid and cook off any remaining liquid. Adjust the flavor to taste with a dash of cayenne, salt and black pepper (and any of the other spices, as desired). The potatoes should be deliciously smoky and spicy, piquant with the acidity of the tomatoes, but mellowed by the cinnamon and cloves. Set aside.

Next, prepare the beef.
Crumble 1.5 lbs of ground beef in the skillet and cook until brown. Drain excess fat, then add:

Reserved tomatoes and chilis from the can of Rotel
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped black olives
2 Tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp spanish paprika

Cook until onions and raisins are soft and flavors are blended. The resulting mixture should be a lovely, warm combination of sweet and savory. When it is flavored to your liking, add the potatoes back in, mixing to combine. Meat and potato mixture can be reserved in the fridge up to 2 days.

To bake the pie:
I'm a cheater and used Pillsbury roll-out pie crust, following the package instructions. But given the many different shells encasing empanadas around the world, I suspect it would be delicious with a cornmeal crust or the doughy crust traditional in the Spanish pie-sized version.

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