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

The best cook that I've 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.

Start moving the vegetables
to the sides of the pan,

and once the middle heat up very well,

add tomato paste,

tomato passata,

tomato concentrate,

canned tomatoes,

whatever you have on hand.

The tomato paste is going
to overcook or toast a little

because it's being cooked
at a higher temperature

than the rest of the veggies,

and you'll see clearly
how it'll start to boil and make bubbles.

The flavor that is gives to the sofrito

by cooking first the tomato paste

before mixing it
with the rest of the ingredients

is amazing.

You can make your sofrito
with all the veggies you have

instead of throwing them out

as very often we throw away things
because we don't know what to do them.

You can use this sofrito for pasta,
to make a sauce,

to make empanadas,
which I hope you'll make

wherever you are now.

I brought this from my kitchen

as we're now in my workshop and home

and I want to show it to you.

What I've got here
is a fish that I cooked.

You can use any type of fish fillet
you have on hand,

we don't have to tell you
which one you need.

I'm adding garlic cloves chopped roughly,

onions,

cilantro,

and the fish which will be
cooked thoroughly.

This fish stock is unbelievable.

Once you finish cooking the fish,

you strain the stock,

you can even add some of the same fish,

and you'll have a wonderful broth.

Now we'll take out
the fish for the pisillo.

I'm going to show you a trick.

This is a trick that I learned

when I was on the island
of Margarita, in Venezuela,

where I lived for many years.

While there I learned many tricks
like the one I'm going to show you.

Get a piece of cloth
that is sufficiently permeable,

add the fish, and squeeze the liquid out.

Then, take the fish
and add it to the sofrito.

Come and check out

the texture of the fish
-- any fish will work --

once you've squeezed the water out.

Look at how beautiful it looks!

They look like small threads
and this is one of the secrets

of a good fish pisillo.

Now that we have our pisillo

let's remember

the three things that we learned
when making it.

First, how to make annatto-colored oil
that you can use to cook anything

and give it that yellowish color.

Second, how to make a sofrito
which you can also freeze to use later,

and third, how to cook a fish
and squeeze the liquid out

to make a pisillo
that you can also freeze.

So, now we're going
to the main part of this recipe

which is to make the empanada.

We'll start taking some dough
and make a small ball.

Don't worry if you make a larger ball

because you'll see how we're going
to remove the extra dough.

Take a plastic film--

I'm really making them
as if I were on the island of Margarita

with the ladies, who are the ones
making the best empanadas.

Lightly wet the paper with water
to make this step easier,

take the dough,

spread it,

fold the side of the paper
to cover it,

and spread the dough a little bit more.

It's very easy if you're using
any plastic bag that you might have

but the best part is that what you got here

is a white canvas names Latin America.

You can stuff these empanadas
with anything.

If you're in the US, let's say, in Texas,

where they love barbecued beef,

you can use this barbecued beef
to stuff your empanadas

and share it with your Texans friends.

If you live in Mexico, you can stuff it
with taco Al Pastor -- Mexican-style pork,

or you can make it vegetarians with beans,

in other words, this is an empty canvas.

A canvas that allows us all
to seat at the table,

with our neighbors so that
we can share who we are as Venezuelans,

with our friends so that
we can serve and spoil them,

and this is how the empanada
helps to gather us

and extend our hands to each other.

Now, for the next steps

we're going to stuff our empanada,

with the pisillo.

And I repeat, you can stuff it
with anything.

We fold the empanada
so that one ends covers the other

and, at the end, it's okay
to have extra dough

because, at this moment, you could
use a plate, for example, to cut it--

Look... look how nice it is...
I'm going to cut it--

It gives me a perfect half moon shape,

an empanada--

actually, this is a very good empanda
because it's very well stuffed.

As soon as you finish the empanada
you need to fry it right away

because if you let it rest for a while,

it'll begin to dehydrate
and the dough will start to crack--

The dought sill start cracking.

You do a small test to make sure

the oil is really hot--

You add a tiny bit of dought--

It should look like the beautiful bubbles
that you might see inside a glass.

Let me tell you an anecdote.

Because the empanadas have
different types of stuffing

when you eat them at the beach,
for example, when we're in Venezuela,

they usually have a little mark,

like a little hole in here,

like this one that I'm making,

so the ones with one little hole
are stuffed with fish,

the ones with two little holes
are stuffed with beef,

and the ones two little holes,
one on each side

might be stuffed with cheese, for example.

English subtitles by
Jenny Lam-Chowdhury