Eva's Kitchen - Eva Longoria Parker [10]
All-purpose flour, for rolling
25 to 30 store-bought empanada disks, defrosted
25 to 30 ½-inch cubes Manchego cheese
1. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent, about 6 minutes. Crumble in the beef, and add the paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the beef is browned, about 10 minutes.
2. Drain off the excess grease. Stir in the vinegar. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour. Stir in the olives and hard-cooked egg whites.
3. If baking the empanadas, preheat the oven to 425°F. Coat 2 baking sheets with vegetable oil.
4. When working with empanada disks, always keep all but the disk you’re working with covered with a damp towel. If the disks are very firm, place them one at a time on a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll them to ½ to 1 inch larger than they are to make them a little more pliable.
5. To fill, lay an empanada disk on the work surface. Place about 1½ tablespoons of the meat mixture in the center of the dough disk. Tuck a cube of cheese into the center of the filling. Use your finger to wet the edges of the disk with water and fold over to seal. Gently press the tines of a fork along the edge to crimp. Lay the empanada on a baking sheet and cover with a damp towel. Repeat with the remaining filling and dough disks.
6. Brush the tops of the empanadas with vegetable oil and bake until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Serve hot.
If frying the empanadas, fill a skillet ¾ inch deep with vegetable oil and heat to 360°F. over medium heat. Preheat the oven to 200°F. Line 2 baking sheets with paper towels. Fry the empanadas in the oil until golden brown and crisp, 4 to 6 minutes, turning once. Remove with tongs, letting excess oil drip back into the pan, and transfer to a paper towel–lined baking sheet. Keep warm in the oven while you fry the remaining empanadas. Serve hot.
soups & salads
The warm feelings the soups in this chapter evoke in me are not purely physical—although nothing is more warming than a bowl of steaming soup on a cold Texas night (yes, we have them!). I feel so much nostalgia when I prepare and serve these soups, whose delicious aroma and flavor belie how very simple they are to make. That simplicity was absolutely crucial for my mom. With four kids and a husband to feed every day, her approach to food had to be “how quickly can we get something good on the table?” These days my own busy life often puts me in the same frame of mind, and that’s when I most appreciate these soups, full of flavor and amazingly quick to pull together. Plus, most can be made vegetarian simply by using vegetable stock in place of the chicken stock—a real plus when I’m serving meat-averse friends.
My favorite salads, the ones I return to again and again, evolved from the trial and error of combining ingredients and flavors I like. Occasionally I would stumble upon a combination that I scribbled on a scrap of paper so that I had a prayer of replicating it! One cardinal truth I’ve learned over the years is that for green salads, the greens are the key. Tender butterhead lettuce is my absolute favorite, whether dressed simply with extra-virgin olive oil and a little balsamic or in the more layered Butterhead Lettuce Salad with Strawberries. On the other side of the spectrum is peppery arugula, whose sharp bite is a welcome counterpoint to succulent shrimp in Grilled Shrimp on Arugula. And in between the two is baby spinach, which I love tossed with Buttermilk Dressing or in the perennial favorite, Baby Spinach with Beets and Goat Cheese.
butternut squash soup
tortilla soup
yellow squash soup with lemon
carrot ginger soup
lemon orzo soup
grilled shrimp on arugula
baby spinach with beets and goat cheese
rotini pasta salad
hearts of palm salad
butterhead lettuce salad with strawberries
mexican caprese
corn and zucchini salad
asparagus with grey moss inn white french dressing
butternut squash