Most ads are interactive -- click on them to visit the folks who make The Panama News possible

dining

The genuine ingredient? Actually, it's not. These hot cherry peppers are preserved in oil rather than pickled as such. If you use these peppers in the recipe below, use brine from some dill pickles instead of the liquid from this jar.

REAL empanada filling recipe
in the Atlantic side Zonian tradition, as rendered by Eric Jackson

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil

• 1 large Spanish onion, chopped

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef

• 1 1/2 pounds ground pork

• 10 pickled cherry peppers (take your pick, hot or mild*), chopped

• 2 Tablespoons of the brine from the cherry pepper jar

• 2 Tablespoons of tomato paste

• 1/2 cup mashed potatoes

• Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

Directions:

• Heat a large skillet to medium high, cover the bottom of the skillet with the olive oil, add the onion and garlic, and fry until the onions and garlic are transparent and starting to brown

• Add the beef and pork, stirring and mixing with the onion/garlic mix until they are fairly well done

• Drain the grease from the pan, then turn the heat to low

• Stir in the cherry peppers, pickling brine, tomato paste and mashed potatoes, and mix it well enough so that you have this gloppy concoction that sticks together

• Turn off the heat, taste your filling, and adjust with salt and cayenne pepper to your taste, stirring things up so that the salt and pepper are evenly distributed throughout the mixture

Now you will be ready to fill your pastries.

As alluded to above, there are almost infinite variations. A lot of people spice with cumin or chili powder. Other recipes go lighter on the peppers, or use different kinds of peppers. Some wild and crazy Peruvians will substitute seafood for the meat, and sweet potatoes for the potatoes. And then there are those Chilean things, with stuff like prunes, olives or hard-boiled egg slices in them. The Jamaicans make some empanada-like things they call patties. Even within the old Canal Zone, there were heretics who considered the Diablo Clubhouse recipe the "real thing." But the real thing is as above.

*Someone with the palate of a true Colon Buay will, of course, go with the hot ones. But gringos and capitalinos will tend to like the milder ones better.