Puerto Rico’s Beef Empanadillas

A savory meat pie seasoned with Sazon and Adobo.  A classic Puerto Rican dish made simple with the use of puff pastry dough.

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The famous meat pie has spanned several cultures around the world  and Puerto Rico did not sit this one out.  The Empanadilla stems from the Portuguese and Spanish verb, empanar, which means to wrap in bread.

The United Kingdom has a related meat pie called the Cornish Pasty, which has heritage protection in Cornwall.  It was a portable lunch for Cornish miners to take under ground wrapped in cloth.  Due to the toxic nature of their work in the tin mines and the inability to wash their hands before eating,  the edge of dough was made extra thick to use as handles to discard once the rest of the pie was eaten.    A life saving culinary invention.  There is also the Middle Eastern meat pie known as the Fatayer, a beef pie wrapped in dough.

This Puerto Rican version gets some spicy love from readily available spice mixes common to most grocery stores.  Sazon and Adobo really awaken the taste buds in a delightful, Caribbean medley of Garlic, Cumin and Annato.  The crescent dough of course is a short-cut but if you are up to making your own, go for it!  You can easily use this pastry recipe here.   This type of dough creates a very puffy, flaky pastry that is fun to eat, so give it a try.  Spanish type olives round out the umami taste and livens up the color of the filling, so put your favorite caribbean tunes on and ’empezar a cocinar’!

I recommend serving this with Puerto Rican Rice, an easy everyday version made in a rice cooker.  Oh yeah, Mr. Craftiness?  He really likes both of these recipes, WIN!!

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