Empanada Dough

Yeah, I took this straight from epicurious because I noticed that all the pre-made disks in the store have partially hydrogynated oil or shortening in them, so I decided to see what I could do with this. I usually suck at dough making, but we'll give it a shot. You can also use puff pastry dough, though I am not sure what's in that either. We'll see how these turn out.

Empanada Dough
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 large egg
1/3 cup ice water
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

Sift flour with salt into a large bowl and blend in butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal with some (roughly pea-size) butter lumps.

Beat together egg, water, and vinegar in a small bowl with a fork. Add to flour mixture, stirring with fork until just incorporated. (Mixture will look shaggy.)

Turn out mixture onto a lightly floured surface and gather together, then knead gently with heel of your hand once or twice, just enough to bring dough together. Form dough into a flat rectangle and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, at least 1 hour.

Post script: I didn't know how to best cut the disk shapes out of this dough so I emptied a can of Cafe Bustelo and used that as a mold, it worked perfectly. And this recipe seems to make about 15 wrappers, over hald of which I put in the freezer for later.

The results of this crust were excellent, though not at all like what you get when you make them with store bought. I just found out that my parents bought me Cocina Criolla for Christmas so I will try a recipe from there and see how it comes out.