Empanada

An orange rice-flour crust, deep-fried, with an egg cracked in at the moment of folding.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains longganisa, which is a pork sausage.

Ingredients

the dough

• 300 g rice flour
• 100 g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons annatto powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 280 ml warm water

the filling

• 400 g green papaya, finely grated
• 300 g longganisa, skins removed
• 200 g bean sprouts
• 8 eggs
• 2 teaspoons salt

to fry

• oil, for deep frying

Method

1. THE EGG GOES IN RAW, AT THE LAST SECOND, and it cooks inside the sealed crust. That is the whole trick of this one and it is why each has to be assembled and fried immediately rather than made in advance.
2. Mix the dough: rice flour, plain flour, annatto, salt and warm water, kneaded to a smooth, slightly stiff dough. Rest 30 minutes. It will be orange.
3. Salt the grated papaya, leave 15 minutes, squeeze dry. Fry the longganisa meat, breaking it up, until cooked.
4. Roll a ball of dough out thin between two sheets of plastic -- rice-flour dough tears on a rolling pin and will not take flour.
5. On one half pile papaya, sausage and sprouts, make a well, and CRACK AN EGG INTO IT.
6. Fold the plastic over to bring the dough across, press the edge and crimp. Work fast and do not tilt it.
7. Slide straight into oil at 180C. Fry 4 to 5 minutes, turning once, until the crust is firm and deep orange. Serve at once, with vinegar.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes