One night in Buenos Aires, mom, Lexi, and I went to an empanada cooking class, since I just loved them so much and they are a very traditional food in Argentina. We were shown the traditional style empanada, stuffed with onion, cubed beef, boiled egg, and olives, and helped make some ourselves.

The hosts, Adrian and Marcelo, fixed the ingredients to be stuffed inside themselves, then we took a break and had some snacks in an Argentine fashion. We talked about some of the politics of the country, and then finished making the empanadas. We put the ingredients in the dough and folded it, then one of our hosts fried it in sunflower oil, and voila! Perfect empanadas. They tasted pretty good, too.

Getting home from the class was somewhat disastrous, as the trains stopped halfway through, but we managed. Turns out the buses weren’t a bad transportation choice.

Empanada Recipe:

To prepare the dough:
 Wheat flour
 ¼ to ½ teaspoon of salt
 1/4 butter
 1 egg
 ¼ to ½ cup of water (Add the amount needed until the dough is smooth)
Roll 6" discs to about 1/4" thickness

To prepare the filling:

Ingredients:
1/2 kg Rump Beef, Cubbed
1 Bunch green onion (4 or 5 seddlings)
2 common onions
4tbsp oil
3 hard-boiled eggs
To Taste: cumin, salt, sweet paprika and olives

Preparation:
1) Cut the onions into small cubes.
2) Place oil in a bowl, add onions, coat and cook until tender.
3) Add meat, mix it with the onions and cook until golden, avoiding drying.
4) Add salt, cumin, sweet paprika, and mix.
Turn off the heat and add hard-boiled eggs, olives.  Mix
5) Remove from heat and allow to cool.
6) Spoon filling into center of dough disc.
7) Moisten the edge of half the disc with water using your finger, fold in half, and pinch the edges together to close the empanada
8) Fry in a neutral oil (sunflower is best) until golden brown.
9) Enjoy!