Thursday, April 22, 2010

Delicious and easy tuna and goat cheese empanadillas!

I must admit when I first came across this recipe, I was a little apprehensive about tuna and goat cheese going well together, but these empanadillas were absolutely delicious and super easy to make!

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 tablespoons minced onion
6 oz canned tuna, packed in olive oil
4 oz goat cheese
3 oz pimento-stuffed olives, chopped
5 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
3 tablespoons capers, chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
Salt and pepper, to taste.
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
30 puff pastry discs (can be found in the freezer section with Latin American-type things. You can of course cut out your own discs of about 3 inches from a 16 oz. package of puff pastry)
1 egg, beaten (for the egg wash)

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for about 5 minutes or until softened. Remove from the heat and set aside

Using whatever utensil you fancy, mash the tuna (drained, but not to the point of it being dry) with the onion, garlic, goat cheese, olives, pine nuts, capers, paprika, salt, and pepper. I found that with the salt from the olives and capers there was no need for any extra salt (I even reduced the amount of capers to 3 tbsp from 5), but you can certainly pepper it up a bit. Fill the center of each puff pastry disc with around a tablespoon of filling, then fold over and seal the edges with a bit of water. You can also crimp the edges with a fork to give the empanadillas a bit more character. Make a small slit in the top of each empanadilla with a knife, then brush them with the egg wash.

Put in a baking dish or sheet pan at medium heat for around 20 minutes, or until the empanadillas become somewhat golden and crisp-looking. Finally, ¡que aprovechen!