22 February 2017

FYGW #4 Dal Empanadas!

Last week Good Wolf was on holiday and it was awesome.

We definitely feel like we fed our good wolves with lots of things, on the metaphorical side we fed ourselves with friends, kindness, joy and sharing. We also literally fed ourselves with all the delicious food! One night we did a Masterchef challenge, where 3 teams took part in creating a three course menu for the rest of the holiday guests. This was a lot harder than I anticipated, we all pretty much spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen with an increasing level of stress developing between the teams. But it was so satisfying serving up our food to some very thankful and appreciative guests and so as well as feeding my good wolf Dal Empanadas , I was filled with the satisfaction of doing something for others with love, effort and time.

So here is my recipe for Dal Empanadas, This recipe is made up of lots of different recipes smashed together so its not an exact recipe. This recipe really is at its best with all the elements and as a minimum I would suggest at least serving it with the coriander chutney. These can be a great lunch snack or part of a main, if you are making them as a starter depending on your appetite you could make the empanadas smaller.

Recipe makes about 10

Pastry

150g unsalted butter
300g plain flour
Large pinch of salt
1 medium egg, lightly beaten
3-5 tablespoons water
1 tbsp tumeric

Add all the ingredients for the pastry together and mix until combined. You can use a food processor to mix if you have one. The pastry should form a ball which you need to gently kneed on a lightly floured surface (it should have a nice yellow tone from the tumeric). Wrap in cling film and place in fridge for at least half an hour. Once chilled roll out on to a floured surface and use a saucer to cut out 10 circles from the dough about 3-4mm thick. Prepare 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Dal

2 tins of lentils (i use green)
200g red split lentils
2 onions
2 tbsp curry powder
Coconut cream 100g
1.5 vegetable stock cube

Peel and finely slice your onions, heat a large pan with 1-2 tbsp of veg oil over a medium heat. Once hot add half of the onion with a pinch of salt and cook for 5 minutes or until softened. Meanwhile place the remaining onion on a baking tray and drizzle with oil, place them under the grill for 5-10 minutes until nicely charred.

Rinse the red lentils under a cold tap. Boil a kettle and dissolve the stock cubes to 550 ml of boiled water. Add the curry powder to the softened onion and cook for 1 minute. Add the red and tinned lentils to the pan (no need to drain tinned lentils). Add the stock and the coconut cream and stir for 15-20 minutes until all the water is absorbed and the lentils are tender and porridge like. Decant the mixture to a bowl and place in fridge.

Coriander Chutney

1 tsp chilli flakes
2 garlic clove
2 tbsp white rice vinegar
40 grams fresh coriander
30g fresh root ginger
Olive oil

Peel and roughly chop or grate the garlic and the ginger. Chop the coriander finely, including the stalks. Grind in a pestle and mortar or blend the garlic and ginger with a pinch of salt. Add the chopped coriander, rice vinegar, chilli flakes and a pinch of sugar and 4 tbsp olive oil and mix to combine – the chutney is complete!

Spicy Mango Chutney (with Paneer)

1.5 Teaspoons fresh ginger
1 clove of garlic
1 red chilli (add as much as you want dependant on your heat preference!)
2 tsp nigella seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 ground cardamon
1/4 ground cinnamon
1/2 tumeric
3 Mangos
200 ml white vinegar
225g sugar

You can either make the mango chutney as a dip, or you can also use it to make a lovely mango spiced paneer. Don’t worry if you don’t have all the spices just add what you have got from the list, it’s still going to be yum.

Firstly to make the chutney heat a tbsp of oil in a pan over medium heat finely chop the ginger, chilli and garlic and add to the pan and saute for a minute, then add the spices and saute for another minute. Peel the mango and remove the flesh and cut into small chunks, add to the plan with the vinegar and sugar and stir. Bring the mixture to the boil and reduce to medium low heat simmer for at least 30 minutes. Make sure the mixture does not stick to the pan. Once the mixture has cooked, you can either keep the chunky consistency or blend into a puree. For my recipe I did half and half.

For the Spicy Mango Paneer

Using 1 or 2 packets of paneer (depends how much you love paneer) cut into chunks. For my recipe I cook two sizes, I cook 1/2cm little chunks to add to the empanada and 2.5cm chunks for the plate. Add the paneer to a dry medium hot frying pan and cook till browned. Add the mango chutney to the paneer and stir until the whole mixture has combined evenly. Put the small chunks into a bowl and place in fridge. If you are doing larger chunks for the plate then cook these close to serving so they are hot.

Mint Raita

100g Greek Yoghurt
1 Tsp finely chopped green chilli
3-4 tbsp finely chopped mint

Combine ingredients and place in the fridge

The Empanada
Preheat the oven to Gas mark 6 or 200C

Lay out your circles of pastry one at a time on the baking tray. add a few pieces of mango paneer (if you are using paneer) to the middle of the pastry. Add 2-3 teaspoons of dal mixture to the top middle half avoiding the edges. Fold over to create half a circle, use your finger tips to seal the edges and brush with a beaten egg mixture. If you find mixture is escaping the pastry you might be using to much, equally if they look a bit hollow add more. Place them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.

Serve with the mango chutney, paneer, coriander chutney and Raita. Present however you like. I used a dinner plate and placed the empanada on one half with a dollop of each dip on the other side with 3 chunks of paneer.

This is a picture of Empanada with coriander and mango chutney in case you are wondering what it should look like!