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 show you
how to make breakfast.
But today 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 Venezuelan call
this wonderful avocado sauce.
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 be too worried
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 concentrate
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.
Why?
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 an opposite group of people
who say we should be adding
the cornmeal to the water.
To be really honest, I think it's the same
because if you knead well this dough,
you won't have any lumps at the end.
You'll 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 a play-doh.
Do you remember playing with play-doh?
That's what we're going to do.
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.
Hence, I have this wet towel,
we'll cover it,
and we'll let it rest
to get the hydration 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 empanada!
♪ (music) ♪
The next step for our recipe
is to prepare anatto-infused oil.
What is anatto-infused oil?
This wonderful thing you see here
is known as onoto, annatto or achiote,
depending on where you are
in the American continent.
English subtitles by
Jenny Lam-Chowdhury