Empanadas de calabaza sazonas -- Seasoned Pumpkin Empanadas

I had a wonderful sweet pumpkin sitting around and the time to make something with it.  I recalled that Miss Pinedo had some recipes involving pumpkin empanadas, so I decided to give it a try.  I have never made empanadas before, but I have eaten some with great enthusiasm.

From pages 91 and 92 in her book, I found and translated:

Empanadas--Dough for.

         To a pound and a half of flour, put two egg yolks and one white, a little bit of fat and salt: stir everything with cold water, knead well, and when it is of a regular temper, form the puff pastries, fill them, and put in the oven. 

Seasoned pumpkin empanadas.

         Put the pumpkin in large pieces to cook, and after cooked it is removed from the heat. It is mashed well and passed through a sieve, seasoning it with ground cinnamon and a very little clove and sugar.

         The dough is stuffed, folded, and crimped; cook them in the oven.

Time to experiment!

I didn't take pictures of the pumpkin cooking process, so I will just describe it:  I cut the pumpkin in half, scooped out the seeds and strings, then cut it into quarters.  The pieces went into a big kettle to steam cook:  they rested on a pierced metal stand that had water underneath.  The water got to a slow boil (just enough to produce some steam) and I cooked the pumpkin for about an hour with a lid on the pot.  I checked it regularly to see if I needed to add more hot water (I did a few times) and to see if the pumpkin was tender all the way through.  

Then I turned off the heat, removed the lid, and let the pumpkin cool so I could handle it easily.  Using a spoon, I scraped the flesh off the shell.  The flesh went into the refrigerator until Iit was time to make the filling.

My Redaction

Dough:

I found that 1 1/2 pounds of flour was about 5 cups. 

5 cups flour (plus a little extra as needed)

2 egg yolks

1 egg white

7 ounces of fat (I used about 1/2 vegetable shortening and 1/2 butter)

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

cold water

Pulse the flour, egg yolks and white, salt, and fat together in the food processor until mixed.  Add cold water and run the processor until the dough comes together into a ball.  Remove from bowl and knead gently.  Wrap or put into a covered container and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Basically, I treated it like a pie crust.

Filling:

The pumpkin chunks were put in a deep kettle and pureed with a stick blender.  I estimated it to be about 7 cups of puree.

7 cups pumpkin puree

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 pinches cloves

Gently warm the puree, adding in the other ingredients and stirring well.  Allow some time for the flavors to blend and let cool. It should be very thick.  

Before pureeing

After pureeing, and with the sugar and spices.

Making the empanadas:

Roll out the dough, cut into rounds, put a spoonful of filling on the dough.  Fold and crimp the edges.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden brown.

My Notes

I wanted to try my nifty little gadget that is supposed to make beautiful dumplings like empanadas.  

I rolled the dough to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick and used one part of the gadget to cut the circles.

The other part of the gadget is what folds and crimps the dough.

The dough sits on top and the filling sits in the middle.

It took some experimenting to get the dough thin enough and to find the right amount of filling to put in.  Too much filling squished out of the dough when it was folded over and crimped.  This is too much filling and the dough is too thick:

This is better on the dough thickness (although I kept trying to make it thinner) and about right on the filling quantity.

The extra dough tears off easily. All the scraps that didn't have filling smeared on it got rerolled and cut.

They were so cute on the baking sheet!

Before baking, some batches were sprinkled with sugar.  Other batches has a little cream brushed on top and were sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.  And sometimes I just put ginger sugar on top.

This is cream with cinnamon sugar.

I had problems with them opening up, both before and during baking.

Look at the one at the top.  It is opening up.

Not the result I wanted.

I also tried sealing them up with my fingers instead of using the gadget.  I also tried brushing water along the edges to help them seal.

None were very successful, although I did think of open clams or oysters when I looked at them (no pearls, though).

The Verdict

I kept making empanadas until I ran out of dough.  I still had filling left over.  

So some were open and some were closed and I tasted both kinds (and all of the toppings!).  

They were good!  I liked the thinnest dough with the most filling -- not surprising because the filling was the best part.  The pumpkin flavor came shining through and it was lightly sweet.  It had just enough spice to keep it from being bland; it was a good balance with the pumpkin.

The dough needed to be crisper, I thought, but it still did the job.  Not heavy in any way.  It just didn't have much crunch.

The ones eaten after the first day were heated until the outside crisped up a little and got more brown.  This was fine. 

I will call them a success for my first attempt.  And I forgot to take a picture of any in a decorative way.  

The leftover pumpkin filling got turned into a savory soup with corn, onions, and pieces of chicken.  It was really, really tasty.

I think if you wanted to put in more spice, you could do so and it would still be good.  I was really looking for the pumpkin flavor, which influenced my measurements.  A really cinnamon-y filling would be fine.