Empanada vegetariana - Galician stuffed bread

    Empanada gallega/ Galician empanada belongs to cuisine of Galicia, and is mainly had as an appetizer.  This, in general refers to an variety of stuffed bread - filling being fish or seafood or vegetables or an ultimate combo  of all three.  They are known to have sweet fillings as well.  They are prepared as an large savoury pie, and is sliced for serving purpose.

So, when Swathi and Marisa suggested us this bread, I was very delighted to bake them.  I choosed vegetarian version of Empanada with an touch of scrambled eggs, you can avoid eggs if you want. Empanadas vegetarian mixture are called as, 'zaragallada' and they have an strong hint of onions along with garlic, capsicum and tomatos. 

Empanada can be circle or rectangular, depending on baker's choice. Once out of the oven, they were mild, delecious and filling as well.   Since, they are mild, they would go great with tomato-chilly dip or chilly sauce.  We cherished them as an week-end tea-time snack and all thanks to  Swathi and Marisa  for suggesting such an delecious bread

Preparation time:  40 minutes (apart from overnight dough proofing)
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Baking time: 25-30 minutes
Serves: 4  

Ingredients required

For dough 

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbspn oil
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 11/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 3/4 cup of water

For filling 

• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 tbspn garlic, crushed
• 300 gms of onion, finely chopped
• 200 gms of capsicum, finely chopped
• 150 gms of tomatos, finely chopped
• 2 eggs
• Salt & pepper, to season

For egg wash

• 1 egg
• 1 tbspn cold water

Please note that for required dough using 3 cups APF, half the quantity of filling was used.  The other half, I used for making other dishes.  You can half the quantity of filling in above column, if you wanted apt. 

The vegetarian filling is the basic version, you can add other vegetables like carrot,zucchini and aubergine as well. 

Method

Add luke warm water to yeast and sugar, let them become frothy.  Take flour and salt and oil  in an vessel.  

Make an well to the flour and add yeast mixture.  Also, add water as needed and knead them to an soft, pliable dough.  

Transfer them to an greased vessel and cling-wrap till they double in size.  I refrigerated them overnight.  

Dough proofed for me at the morning.  

For filling,  I heated oil and added garlic first.  This is followed by adding onions and capsicum and saute them for five minutes, till they become soft. 

Add tomatos and saute them, season with salt and pepper.

Our zaragallada is ready now.  I placed them in an large filter, within an large container to collect the juice.  Zaragallada is supposed to be dry, so that the stuffing doesn't wet the bread.  This can also be made overnight.  

When you are ready to bake, scramble two eggs with an tsp of oil in an pre-heated pan, let them cool.  Season them with salt as well.

To the dough, divide them into one large ball and one small ball.  I rolled the large ball into rectangle shaped and lined them in the parchment paper lined baking tray.

I spooned the filling, and spread them leaving about an inch gap from the perimeter.  

I shredded the eggs and rolled the smaller dough.

This smaller dough went on the top of bread and I started pinching around the corners, to seal the filling.

All done, now pre-heat the oven to 180 degree celsius.   

With remaining dough, I just decorated them with cookie cutters i have.  

For egg wash, beat the water with egg and brush them all over the bread.  

Bake them for about 25- 30 minutes

Slice them and enjoy.

Linking this to Baking partners by Swathi Iyer