When I did the speech for Central American Food, I took treats in for my classmates. A sweet and a savoury, both were things that could easily be street fare, and could be eaten out of hand. They went over very well, and I thought it was worth the effort in making them. Left to my own devices I would do one at a time, not both together, which made it feel like a marathon of cooking happened that day.
Bunuelos
You can find the recipe I used here, and I will say that even drying overnight didn’t keep some of them from puffing up like little beachballs. Tasty – and the First Reader was delighted to be told that any which weren’t flat he was allowed to eat – but not what I wanted for the presentation. Fortunately, I got enough of the flats to take with me. There are several kinds of bunuelos. I suspect this sort was born from wanting to do something with stale tortilla dough that would be a sweet treat. It reminded me of what we used to do with leftover bits of pie dough. They are crunchy and very good.
Empanadas
I used the filling recipe that is found at here, Choriqueso Empanadas, but the dough was another matter. I might have a local shop that sells empanada wrappers, but I haven’t found it yet.
The empanada dough recipe I used was a lot like pasta dough, and I put it together in the food processor, wanting to activate the gluten strongly, then refrigerated it to keep that process going. This made about twice the dough I needed for the empanadas, and I realized too late that it would have also worked nicely for the bunuelos. Oh, well, next time!
In the food processor:
- 2 1/2 c flour
- I stick of butter, cut into small pieces (and frozen, would be ideal. But chilled, at least)
- 1/2 tsp salt
Pulse the food processor until the butter is well incorporated into the flour. Then, with the processor on, break the egg into the open pour hole. Pulse a few times to break up any clumping. Put the processor back on and add ice cold water a tablespoon at a time until a very thick dough forms with only a few loose crumbs. Shut the processor off and turn the dough onto a floured surface. Knead the crumbs in and until the dough is a cohesive ball. Wrap in saran wrap or a damp cloth and refrigerate.
I took this rest time to begin making the bunuelos.
