Even though each region has its own imprint on the breakfast of their people, there are food choices at mealtime that are common to most of the inhabitants of a country. Along with arepas and oatmeal, empanadas are one of the typical breakfasts in my country, Venezuela.

Empanadas are popular. Although they are not the healthiest food, empanadas are inexpensive, nutritious and delicious.

Like any empanada in the world, a Venezuelan empanada is a turnover with a filling. In our case, the dough is prepared with corn flour, sometimes with a little wheat flour added to get more flexibility.

They are like hand pies deep fried in hot vegetable oil. They are small, not big like a Galician empanada, for example. They are usually filled with cheese; beef, chicken or fish stew; and are served with hot sauce, guasacaca or a minced garlic and herb sauce similar to chimichurris. The empanadas I've prepared today are filled with a substantious stew of mushrooms, green beans, and olives.

Plant based recipes always surprise me when I prepare them for the first time. My husband was also surprised with these empanadas. Next time I'll add a good guasacaca, a vegetable dip we use as a side for empanadas--also for other dishes. We loved this filling, and it went deliciously with the fried semi sweet dough, because in my hometown, this is how we make the dough: with a little sugar--the size, according to the appetite of the guests 😁 .

For the dough:

• 2 cups corn flour
• 1 spoonful wheat flour
• 3 ¼ cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons cane sugar
• enough oil to fry the empanadas (I should've used 2 cups, but I used only one because I wasn't use that oil for anything else, and I'm against wasting ingredients just to make food look prettier)

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For the filling:

• ¾ cups chopped red onion
• ¾ cups chopped carrot
• ¼ cups chopped chili peppers (some were really hot)
• ½ cup chopped red bell pepper
• ½ cup chopped ripe tomato
• 3 medium sized bay leaves
• a little vinegar (1 tablespoon) and cane sugar (1 teaspoon)
• 150 gr mushrooms
• 50 gr green beans
• ½ ctablespoon salt

First, we must make the dough so that it hydrates well while we prepare the filling. This will ensure that the empanada dough will not crack and break while frying. The stew I have prepared has some broth in it and if the empanadas were to break, then the liquid would make a bit of a mess when it comes in contact with the hot oil. The truth is that I did it all very fast and one of the empanadas did break a little bit, but nothing happened🙈.

Mix all the ingredients for the dough, except the water.

Once you have mixed all these ingredients well, you can add the water.

Mix well using a spoon or your hands. I use both.

When the dough feels soft, set aside and work on the filling.

Wash all the veggies and the mushrooms and start chopping.

I chopped all the ingredients of the filling and calculated the quantities afterwards to be able to tell you the proportions, but we already know that this will be something approximate and according to your tastes.

I used my little mortar and pestle to process the garlic cloves.

I was happy to find that some of the chili peppers were hot. This is the kind of spice that I love the most in my food. All went into the pot.

To start making the stew, first sautee the onion, carrot, chili peppers, red bell pepper, and bay leaves. For me, two minutes were enough.

I was also happy to find out that the green beans were tender; you can tell it because of the white color inside. They feel really meaty when they are like this.

Along with the garlic, the tomato and green beans were the last to go into the pot before I added the mushrooms and olives, as the former were really tender and the latter would turn into a sauce if I let it cook longer. I let this cook for no more than a minute.

Then it was time to add the chopped mushrooms and sliced olives. I'd found some big olives in the store (Turkish); they were really tasty, but they lacked some of the vinegary flavor I'm used to, so I added a little vinegar.

...As I had added vinegar, I felt like adding a little sugar to make it a bit sweet and sour. Just a little.

1 minute after that, the stew was ready!

Time to assemble the empanadas!

This is how the mise en place of an empanadera looks like 😁

I cut a sheet out of a clean plastic bag on which I'd flatten the dough with my fingertips. The process is simple, but if you are inexperienced, you'll want a sidekcik to fry the empanadas while you assemble them, as they take little time to fry--and burn 😖.

On the wet plastic sheet, spread the dough using your fingertips; then place enough filling (without too much liquid) towards the half closest to you. With the help of the plastic sheet, fold the dough over the filling and quickly press the edges to trap the filling inside. Remove excess dough. Some people prefer to do this with the help of a small bowl, which they turmn over to cut by pressing down on the dough; this way all the empanadas are exactly the same size.

Empanadas are fried over medium-high heat and take about 2 minutes to be done and crisp. So you have to be that quick to assemble them and keep an eye on the pan to turn them over.

Check out the process 👩‍🍳

I use a good amount of oil to prevent the dough from absorbing it, but even so, I use much less oil than necessary to achieve uniformity on the surface of the empanada. It works for me; I just have to make sure to pour hot oil on top of the empanada as it is frying, so that the top doesn't crack as the bottom starts to fry...

Maybe you are already an expert at making empanadas; if not, I hope this post has been useful for you. And remember that vegetable fillings can surprise you with their comforting and delicious flavors and textures. Their subtleties are many; you'll feel very satisfied and happy!

Thank you so much for your visit :)

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

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