Meat Galician Pie

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to cook this traditional pie for you all. This is probably one of most famous recipes from Galicia. This dish is well known all over Spain. The Spanish word for this dish is "empanada". This delicious pie can be filled with meat, fish or seafood and it has been cooked in my family for generations. My son loves cooking this dish and he usually helps me to make the dough, this is easier than you might think. Once ready, he always makes shapes with dough leftovers to bake in the oven together with the pie. This dish can be served either hot or cold. It can be cooked the day before and it is perfect to take away. In Galicia there's no picnic without this traditional pie!

Ingredients:

(Serves 6)

1 kg self raising wheat flour
(50 g yeast if plain flour is used instead)
200 ml warm water
220 ml extra virgin olive oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
5 onions
500 g pork loin steaks
Salt to taste

Difficulty and cooking time:

Medium
2 hours

Method:

Peel, wash and chop the onions. Then dice the loin steaks.

Put the extra virgin olive oil on a large frying pan, add the chopped onion, a little salt, and stir fry until golden brown.

Then add the diced steaks, salt to taste and cook just for 3 minutes over a medium heat. (Do not cook meat for too long because we're baking this pie in the oven later)

Reduce heat and add a teaspoonful of sweet paprika (a pinch of saffron could be used instead). Stir thoroughly and save for later.

Strain 150 ml of the olive oil we have used to cook the meat and save for later. (This is going to be used to make the dough)

Put 700 g of self raising flour into a large bowl, add a teaspoon of salt. Make a well in the middle and add 1 egg. Then pour the warm water (about 50ºC) into the bowl.

Then add the olive oil we had saved before.

Swirl all the ingredients thoroughly, using your hands or a spoon until they have a consistency.

Put this mixture on a clean and floured surface, add additional flour and mix all the ingredients thoroughly using your hands until you get a non sticky and elastic dough.

Knead the dough using your hands until it comes together in a smooth, firm ball (About 10 minutes)

Place the dough ball in a warm place on a floured surface, so the dough won´t stick.

Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for an hour. The dough will raise becoming double size.

When the dough is ready divide it into 2 parts. Then roll out each piece of dough (about 1/2 cm thick)

Place the dough on an oiled baking tray.

Then add the filling.

Top with the other piece of dough and seal the rims.

Spear the dough with a fork, so the steam from cooking won't swell up the pie.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC, then brush the surface with beaten egg to get a shiny and golden brown result.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes and this delicious pie will be ready.

Serve it either hot or cold.

I'm sure you are going to love it!
Hopefully see you soon,

María