How to make empanadas of "pisillo" (shredded fish and sofrito) and garlic "guasacaca" (Venezuelan avocado sauce)?| Sumito Estévez

The best cook that I've ever known
is my wife Silvia making breakfast.

It's amazing.

I've had breakfasts in hotel, brunch,

on a cruise,

and so far, nobody has made
a breakfast like Silvia's.

At some point, I'm going to convince her

to join us here to teach
how to make breakfast.

But today it will be my turn
and I'm going to teach you

how to make one
of the best Venezuelan dishes

typically served for breakfast:

Empanadas.

There are empanadas in Bolivia,
Argentina, Chile, Galicia...

Now it's time for the Venezuelan empanada!

Empanadas stuffed with fish pisillo
-- shredded fish--

Avocado and garlic sauce

So we're going to start making
Venezuelan empanada with corn flour

stuffed with fish pisillo and sofrito,

served with a guasacaca,

which is how we call this wonderful
avocado sauce in Venezuela.

First, to make a good empanada
we'll start with the dough,

which is made with a wonderful invention
that Venezuela gave to the world:

Pre-cooked cornmeal.

This cornmeal is very easy to use

because is pre-cooked

and this is how you start:

Here you have water--

don't worry about how much water

because you'll start adding the cornmeal
until you get the desired texture,

and to that water, you'll add some salt.

Here's my salt.

How much salt?

Well, that will be up to you.

I eat low-sodium,

so mine's usually not very salty

but I like to focus
on the flavor of my stuffing.

It should taste the way
you'd like your soup.

Up to your taste.

Let's try it.

Perfect.

I'm going to wet a clean kitchen towel.

What for?

Because I'm going
to leave this dough to rest

and I need to cover it with a wet towel,

so I'm going to have it ready.

Here's my cornmeal--

We always have this argument

because some people say we should
add the water to the cornmeal,

while there's another group of people

who say we should be adding
the cornmeal to the water.

To be honest, for me it's the same
because if you knead it well,

you won't have any lumps at the end.

Start adding the cornmeal to the water

and, as you can see,
I'm not measuring it,

until you get a dough
very similar to play-doh.

Do you remember play-doh?

That's what we're doing here.

This dough needs to be well hydrated

because being a pre-cooked cornmeal,

if you don't let it rest,

you might get a sandy texture.

So I have this wet towel,

we'll cover it,

and we'll let it rest
to absorb the water it needs.

This cornmeal is gluten-free,
is amazingly healthy,

and you can use it for a myriad of dishes,

which you will be learning for sure,

but today I'm going to teach you
how to make Venezuelan empanadas!

♪ (music) ♪

The next step for our recipe
is to prepare an anatto-colored oil.

What is anatto-colored oil?

These wonderful seeds that you see here
known as onoto, annatto or achiote,

depending on where you are
in the continent,

is the natural coloring that
America gave to the world.

We use it with our food to give it
a delicious yellowish color.

Dishes with this golden color
tastes better, right?

If you serve a traditional dish of chicken
with rice, one white and one yellow rice,

they'll say the yellow one tastes better.

How do we use it?

I start heating up some oil

but without letting it go too hot,

I'll add the seeds,

this handful that I had here,

which is like for one cup of oil,

but it doesn't have to be
a precise amount.

It'll start immediately to color the oil.

Keep in mind that
I'm not frying the annatto.

If you start frying it,

it'll turn bitter as it'll happen
with any other spice.

Look at the color of this.

I'm going to strain it so you can see it.

Look at it.

Annatto-colored oil.

Look at the wonderful color that it gives.

Now we're going to make
the sofrito for our fish pisillo.

While this is heating up--

This is a treasure!

And you can't find it easily lately.

What are these?

The stems and the roots
of the cilantro.

You have to clean them very well
to remove all the dirt

but you can't imagine
the incredible flavor

that you could add to a sofrito
with these roots that you see here--

Never again throw away
the roots of your cilantro,

trust me,

as well as the stems.

Actually, if you asked me,

when it comes to the aroma,

I generally prefer the stems
and the roots than the leaves.

The leaves are almost just for decoration.

I'll start my sofrito by cutting well
everything from the cilantro.

I'm cutting at this speed because
I've been doing this for 30 years

but you should do it carefully

because I don't want you
to have an accident in the kitchen.

Once we've cut everything,

we'll start with the sofrito.

I'll add the oil and
we'll start making sofrito.

Add the stems and the roots
of the cilantro.

(sound of vegetable frying)

That's the sound of the sofrito.

It needs to make this sound,
it's essential!

If it doesn't make any sound,
something is not right.

Then we'll add

garlic,

onion,

peppers.

Listen... wonderful!

We're going to stir fry it very well
so that all the flavors are combined

and I'm going to teach you a great trick
so that you get a very good sofrito.

Come here.

English subtitles by
Jenny Lam-Chowdhury