Chile: Cheese, Olive & Raisin Empanadas

After making my Argentinian empanadas, I was over it. I didn't want to make more pastry, especially for another South American country. However, these were a completely different recipe for the dough and I also realised that it would be much easier to roll out piecs of dough into a circle shape, rather than cutting circles out (which is what I did for Argentina). This was significantly easier.

I was a little sceptical about the combination of these. Olives and feta, a big yes. But the addition of raisins I was unsure about. Happily, they worked fine! The raisins provided a little sweetness while the feta and the olive were a pleasant savoury combination. What's more, I was able to use my own chives that I was growing in my herb garden which was an added bonus. 

The empanadas were delicious. I was very happy with how they turned out. And not too difficult to make either, the trickiest bit was the pastry but after that was ready to go it was basic assembling and baking. Obviously the folding of the empanadas was a little painful - I'm not sure how the professionals are able to crimp the pastry so perfectly, I opted to go for the fork method to pinch them together and that worked out fine for me. 

My recipe is adjusted from this one here.

Cheese, Olive & Raisin Empanadas

Makes about 12

Ingredients

For the pastry

• 150g plain flour
• 1 egg yolk (keep the white and lightly whisk until frothy)
• 50g melted butter
• 90mL milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

For the filling

• 110g feta cheese, crumbled
• Handful of green olives, sliced
• Small handful of raisins
• Ground cumin
• Small handful of chives, chopped
  
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200 C. Combine all pastry ingredients together until a dough has formed, then leave to rest for 10 minutes.
2. Divide pastry into 12 pieces and roll each one out into a circle shape on floured surface.
3. In the centre of the pastry place some feta, olives, raisins, a pinch of cumin, chives, salt and pepper
4. Brush whisked egg white around the edge of each empanada, fold in half, press edges together and crimp together with a fork. Brush the top with a little beaten egg yolk.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, until they are golden. 
6. Serve hot.