The World Table

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Colombian · Starter

Empanadas Vallunas

  • Advanced
  • 45 min
  • roughly 2 of 4 for cost

earthy · nutty-toasted Leads with an earthy, grounding base, toasted, nutty warmth throughout.

Ingredients

  • 300 g masarepa amarilla, precooked yellow corn flour
  • 520 ml hot water
  • 6 g salt
  • 15 ml achiote oil, plus a little more if the dough looks pale
  • 250 g pork shoulder, in one piece
  • 400 g waxy yellow potatoes, peeled and cut small
  • 3 cebolla larga (spring onions), chopped fine
  • 300 g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 45 ml oil
  • 3 g ground cumin
  • salt and black pepper
  • 1.5 L neutral oil, for frying

The skills inside

Empanada foldingDeep fryingSalted water & the float testShaping by handResting dough: the pause that does the work

Allergen screen

Found: gluten

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Simmer the pork in salted water until it pulls apart under a fork, then shred it and keep 200 ml of the cooking liquid.
  2. Cook the spring onion and tomato in the oil over low heat until the tomato is a jammy red mass with oil separating at the rim, then fold in the potato, the pork and enough liquid to keep it loose; crush it roughly with a spoon and cool it completely.
  3. Stir the masarepa, salt and achiote oil into the hot water and rest the dough 10 minutes; it should feel like soft putty, and a pinched edge should smooth over instead of cracking. 10 min
  4. Roll walnut sized balls flat between two sheets of plastic to about 2 mm, spoon on the cold filling, fold and press the seam shut with a wet finger, chasing out every pocket of air.
  5. Fry at 180 C (355 F) in two batches until the shell is deep gold and covered in fine blisters, about 4 minutes, and drain them standing on end. 4 min

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes

  • It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
  • It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
  • The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
  • It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
  • Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.

Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.

Shaping by hand 85 recipes

  • The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
  • Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
  • The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
  • Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
  • They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.

Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.

At the Table

The Pour
Riesling or Grenache
Also Right
Cru Beaujolais
From the Taps
Farmhouse saison
Zero-Proof
Cloudy apple juice, chilled

Pork loves fruit and gentle sweetness: orchard-note whites and low-tannin reds flatter it where heavy oak flattens.

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Empanadas Vallunas Technique: Empanada foldingThe skill inside this recipe The cuisine, deeper Technique films from the Colombian kitchen