Table for TwoEmpanadas Venezolanas
Crispy corn-flour half moons stuffed with savory shredded beef, fried until golden.
Photo: Frederick Medina / Unsplash
⏱ 50 min📶 Medium👫 Serves 2☪ Muslim-friendly
Ingredients (for 2)
- Pre-cooked yellow or white cornmeal (masarepa), 1½ cups
- Warm water, 2 cups
- Salt & a pinch of sugar
- Minced or shredded beef, 250 g
- Onion, ½, finely chopped
- Red pepper, ½, finely chopped
- Garlic, 2 cloves
- Tomato paste, 1 tbsp
- Ground cumin, ½ tsp
- Oil, for frying
Steps
- Cook the onion, pepper and garlic in a little oil, add the beef, cumin and tomato paste and cook until dry and flavorful; cool.
- Mix the masarepa with the warm water, salt and sugar into a soft dough; rest for 5 minutes.
- Flatten a ball of dough between two pieces of plastic into a thin circle.
- Add a spoonful of filling, fold into a half moon using the plastic, and press the edges closed with a bowl rim.
- Fry at 180°C for 3–4 minutes until golden and crisp.
Cook it together: One makes the filling, the other presses and folds the empanadas — the plastic-bag trick makes it easy.
👩🍳 Cook this together — step-by-step mode, timers & passport stamp
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