Empanada

These perfectly crisp empanadas are stuffed with juicy, buttery shrimp that’s seasoned with cilantro and lemon zest. You can make the dough two days ahead so you’re ready to fry them up on New Year’s Eve.

The Perfect Pastry for All Meals

Long the star of South American street snacks, the empanada gets a dinner close-up with this hearty version that puts an entire meal in the palm of your hand. This recipe adapts easily to the stuffing of your choice. Substitute lean ground turkey and bake for a lighter alternative.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other Mediterranean classics, check out the video classes.

Instead of raw shallots, try using the same quantity of roasted shallots. Remove the skins and slice into thirds. Unbaked empanadas can be frozen up to 3 weeks; without thawing, bake in a 375°F oven for about 30 minutes. Baked empanadas can be refrigerated up to 1 day or frozen up to 2 weeks; reheat in a 350°F oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

A street snack of Central America and the Caribbean, empanadas can really be filled with anything you have on hand. This recipe and its variations offer several of the traditional fillings. Masa harina can be found at most supermarkets and Latin grocery stores. It adds a nice crunch to the dough, but regular flour works well, too.

When I visited the city of Monterrey, a family friend, Amado, lovingly and kindly drove me around, showing me the wonderful delicacies of the surrounding towns. He took me to the small town of Marin where Martha Chapa has a small shop famous for her cookies, where I tried an amazing tomato empanada that I couldn’t stop thinking about. She told me how to make the jam, and, when she saw how excited I was, she gave me a large container filled with it. I kept eating spoonfuls of it on my way home and adapted the recipe once I was back in my kitchen. You can keep the jam chunky, or, if you like a smoother consistency, you can pulse it in a food processor after it’s cooked. The jam can be made well in advance and will keep for months if properly stored. It is very tasty on its own and I recommend that you make a big batch.

You can make these empanadas whatever size you want. If you want to have something a bit more substantial, you can make them bigger and have fewer of them, or you can make them smaller and take them as an appetizer to a party. Either way: yummy.

These are a little more work than the other dishes for this party, but they are so yummy we couldn’t skip them. They can be made several hours ahead and refrigerated, or they can be frozen for up to 2 months and baked at the last minute.

These are not the empanadas I grew up with, and until my Argentinean friend Lorena came over one day and made them with me, I would never have considered combining beef with olives and egg whites—but I took one taste and was hooked. Each bite offers an exciting combination of flavors and textures. The secret is that a little cube of Manchego, a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese, is nestled into the center of each empanada. When the empanadas are baked or fried, the cheese melts and adds a subtle creaminess, the source of which is elusive to anyone who didn’t see you put in the cheese. Empanada dough disks can be found in the frozen section of many grocery stores or Latin markets. They are made with regular shortening dough or puff pastry; either works beautifully for this recipe. These empanadas are amazing when deep-fried, but they’re also really delicious when simply baked; directions for both are below. Read more about deep-frying on page 37.

Empanadas are a quintessential example of what traditional Latin food is made of: rock-solid and time-tested techniques that can be adapted to accommodate what’s available regionally, or in the case of my Aunt Elsa, what was in her pantry. She could pull together the most delicious combinations of ingredients out of what appeared to be thin air and then fill and fry a few dozen pastry wrappers in a flash. When Thanksgiving rolled around, these were our version of the classic American pumpkin pie. Tender, flaky, and lightly sweet, these little “Mexican pumpkin pies” make delicious appetizers, too.

In Galicia, empanadas are large enough to serve many people, unlike the individual empanadas of Latin America.

These empanadas are moist and full of flavor. If your gravy is thin, simmer to reduce and thicken it, then chill before using.

These plump, fried hors d'oeuvres, a seafood variation on Chile's signature baked onion-and-meat-filled empanadas, are hot and juicy. Have plenty of napkins ready.

The exquisitely fragrant beefy filling in our take on these classic Central and South American pastries draws on a number of influences—Chilean, Puerto Rican, and Argentinean. Traditionally eaten as street food, empanadas are ideal for snacking on the go but are just as satisfying to sit down to for a simple dinner.

Empanadas de Bariloche This recipe is excerpted from Shirley Lomax Brooks's book Argentina Cooks! We've also added some tips of our own below. To read more about Argentine cuisine, click here. High in the Andes, near the border with Chile, is the all-season splendor of San Carlos de Bariloche. At Christmastime it's a fairyland of cobalt lakes, forested islands, and manicured parklands surrounded by snow-capped alpine peaks. In the center of a small peninsula stands the rustic but elegant Llao Llao Hotel, a holiday mecca for the elite of Buenos Aires, Santiago, and even Paris, Düsseldorf, London, Madrid and Milan. When not attending the hotel's casino (closed as of this writing), guests spend their time dining in exquisite surroundings on international cuisine as well as impeccably fresh seafood from the Pacific coast of Chile. Hence, recipes such as Empanadas de Bariloche frequently straddle the border.