Galician empanada dough

Galician empanada dough recipe. 

In terms of dough, many of you have already trusted the blog, homemade pizza dough is one of our best-known recipes. So you will surely trust the mass that I present below.

Many childhood memories come to mind in my hometown, the vast majority cooking with Grandma. One of them is to go to A  Leira where we have the winery and where there was a communal wood oven, ” or forno do pan “.

There, they used to bake bread for a few days, who would take turns. Very early we prepared the bread dough like the one I present today, the same one that was used to make empanadas.

My grandmother weighed the flour that my aunt Amelia brought her from her mill and the balls and bolillos came out piece by piece, just until the next batch.

The process of heating and heating the oven was done only once and could take about 4 or 5 hours, but it was worth it, the smell of fresh bread all day was blessed glory. The empanadas were more festive and pilgrimage, as were the sweets,  biscuits and bicas .

When the Magdalena festival approached  back in July, the oven was a spectacle, glorious rustic-looking empanadas came out, with a semi-hard crust and a little crumb.

I have never managed to make the same empanada of my grandmother, but with the dough of this recipe I assure you that it is very close. Similar I found the rabbit and pepper empanada that the mother of the friend Suso prepares in Lugo , it seems that the towns and villages of interior use mixtures of very similar flours.

The most important thing is that with this recipe you will get an empanada with the flavor of before, the one you want to transmit thanks to the compango, zaragallada or filling. I hope you like it and dare to try it at home.

Preparation of the pie dough

1. In a large bowl we pour part of the flour .
2. We leave about 4 tablespoons of flour separate to fatten the dough when we knead. In the center of the bowl we make a hole with a spoon. We measure the water that we are going to use.
3. We are going to use fresh pressed yeast from the bakery.  There are several classes although I recommend the 50 gram taquito that they sell in almost all supermarkets.
4. The fresh yeast has to be in the fridge until we start preparing the dough, at about 5º C. The yeast taco brings 50 grams and we are going to use 40 grams.
5. You can use the rest to make pizza dough  or other recipes.
6. We dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water, it is not necessary to use excessively hot water thinking that for that reason it will increase the rising power. If the water is above 45º C we kill all the bugs that it brings so that the dough rises.
7. Let stand 1 or 2 minutes and then stir with a spoon until the yeast dissolves completely.
8. In this recipe it is not necessary to add sugar to activate the yeast, on the contrary, it can make it difficult to lift the empanada dough.
9. Pour the water with the yeast in the center of the flour. We remove with a wooden spoon from the center out, we go little by little mixing with the flour until we have crumbs.
10. The oil of the sofrito that we are going to add to the dough must be warm, from the time.

Preparation of the pie dough. Kneaded

1. Usually I always have a little extra virgin olive oil where I have fried onion or vegetables in a glass jar.
2. So in addition to introducing the necessary fat for the empanada, it also gives it more flavor.
3. You can even give it a touch with some flavored oil, for example with salt or thyme.
4. Add the oil and and the salt. We should never mix salt with yeast directly as it destroys it and we will not make the dough grow.
5. We continue stirring with our hands what begins to be the dough, although for now it will still be a sticky mixture.
6. We prepare the area where we are going to knead, I recommend the kitchen counter.
7. Sprinkle the area with the flour that we have stored and remove the dough from the bowl.
8. We begin to work hard pressing with our fingers from the inside out. Little by little we can manipulate the dough more quickly, it will remain elastic and homogeneous.
9. This process takes about 15 minutes, we can let it rest in the middle of the process.
10. We knead 7 minutes, let it rest 5 and then we knead another 7 minutes. We turn the dough into a ball.

Rest of the dough. Final presentation of the empanada dough

1. We take the previous bowl and flour it. We put the ball of dough in it. Cover the dough with a damp cloth or cotton cloth for 1 hour.
2. The bark should be kept somewhat moist so that it can easily stretch as it grows.
3. The dough will grow better if it is around 30ºC-35ºC and it falls asleep below 22ºC.
4. If your house is very cold it is better to put the bowl close to a radiator but without it being glued to it. Very similar to what we do with the roscón de Reyes at Christmas .
5. If, on the other hand, we are in those Madriles in August at 40º C, the best thing is to take the dough to a cool place in the house.
6. After that time we will see that the dough has doubled in size.
7. We give it a little kneading to remove the air and divide the dough in two. One part will be the base and the other the top. We already have our dough to prepare the empanada that we like the most.

A tip, if you have left over, since it has already rested and fermented, you can freeze the rest of the dough. You see that you can make an empanada dough in the blink of an eye. It allows you to make an empanada or homemade bread a quick and easy task.

Here you have a step by step in photos where I show you how to prepare this empanada dough recipe .  Do not miss any detail so that it comes out perfect.

The best Galician empanadas on the blog

Some of the richest Galician empanadas are:

• The most famous meat pie
• The traditional xoubas or sardine empanada
• An original cod pie with raisins
• From the same Rías Baixas, zamburiñas pie
• A classic like tuna or tuna empanada
• pork pie with mushrooms 
• From the interior and the coast of Galicia, octopus pie
• The familiar Galician stew pie

You see that they can be meat, fish, seafood and almost what you can think of. They will all be very tasty, a simple dish made in the oven that will triumph among the little ones and not so young. It is a pity that the smell does not cross the screen, it smells that it feeds.