How to Make Empanadas de Pino:

Empanadas are the official dish of Fiestas Patrias, it seems. Empanadas are like little pies. Everywhere we went to celebrate, we ate empanadas, for four straight days. Empanadas from the oven, filled with meat and onion, fried empanadas filled with meat or cheese, sweet empanadas filled with pear...all super delicious in their own way. Zuni taught me her recipe for empanadas de pino del horno, which is my favorite kind. And I have yet to find someone who makes a better empanada in Chile than our own Zuni! Oh, and this is a two-day process, so you really have to commit!

Day 1:

Ingredients:
8 hardboiled eggs, peeled
20 medium onions, peeled and chopped
2 liters of water
1 kilo of beef
3 tbsp cuminseed
2 tbsp paprika
2 heaping tbsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Chop onions and rinse them in a strainer. Add water and boil on the stove for 10-15 minutes.
Drain the onions and rinse through the strainer a second time.

Our dog Akiles takes a peek at the onion-chopping process.
Slice the beef into tiny cubes.
As the onions are draining, briefly heat the cuminseed and crush the heated seed in a mortar and pestle. Add oil, salt, cuminseed, and paprika to the pot and stir to make an oily paste. Add meat and cook until browned. Add onions after meat is cooked, stir thoroughly and continuously. Add extra seasonings to taste--usually it needs more salt!
After cooking for 15-20 minutes, let stand on the stove, covered, overnight.

Day 2:

Ingredients:
2 kilos flour
500 grams of margarine
1 tbsp salt
1/4 or 1/2 cup hot water
20 or so black olives (they are better if they still have the pits!)

Combine dough, salt, and margarine on a large cutting board or counter and knead together, adding hot water periodically.
Slice the hardboiled eggs (put them in the freezer for a bit if they are falling apart).
Take a handful of dough and roll it out into a thin pancake.
Place two heaping spoonfuls of the meat and onion concoction, an olive, and a slice of egg into the center of the dough.
Fold dough over and cut around the edges, tamping the edges together with your fingers. Use some of the olive water as glue if the dough doesn't want to stick shut. Fold the edges up and poke two holes in the top with a toothpick. Place completed empanadas on a cookie sheet.

Beat an egg and paint onto the top of the empanadas.
When the tray is full, place in heated over for a certain amount of time...things get tricky here because our oven doesn't register its temperature, so I was told to put it in a hot oven for an amount of time that depends on how hot the oven is. I am pretty sure this means I will burn some empanadas until I figure out what that phrase really means! Let's guess 20 minutes at 350 degrees!
After "an amount of time, depending," your empanadas will be done and ready to eat. And they will be suuuuuuper rica!
I can't wait to fix empanadas for my brother...he is going to love them!