I haven't spent much time in Spain (save for a Madrid long weekend in college where we mainly ate bread and manchengo cheese), so I've never encountered the giant empanada before - also known as Empanada Gallega. Unlike its smaller counterpart, this empanada is baked rather than fried, and one empanada can serve five hungry members of a book club, plus leftovers.
We weren't quite sure what to put in the filling. We wanted something vegetarian, and frankly, some of the options presented to us in the recipe sounded a bit scary (um, Tuna Fish? eek). So Erica came up with something akin to veggie pot pie - gracefully incorporating my demands for sweet potatoes and black beans. I wish I could share the recipe, because it really worked well, but I think it was largely slap dash - mushrooms, corn, peppers, sweet potatoes, black beans, onion, etc.
I think both Erica and I were quite proud of how this turned out - both in taste and aesthetics. We had some extra dough at the end, so we braided it up and laid it on top. While it ended up being hard to cut through, the braid added a nice decorative element.
We did forget completely to add the cheese and the hard boiled egg to the filling, which would have made it more traditional (or so I'm told). So we added it to a tossed salad instead - just as tasty. [Apologies for these pictures - we were using the fancy macro lens, but decided to wing it without the tripod. Ill advised.]
In the end, the empanada gallenga reminded me quite a bit of a calzone. It has that same, bready crust and warm, mushy innards. Quite delicious, and something I'd happily make again!
2 comments:
Very pretty decoration, and the filling sounds yummy! Congratulations on your challenge.
Love it - the braiding on top is beautiful! Glad to know I'm not the only one that misses out key ingredients from time to time - I didn't this time around, but have on many occasions before. Usually I find them at the back of the fridge the next day!
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