The best cook I've ever known--truly,
is my wife Sylvia making breakfast.
She's amazing.
I've had breakfasts in numerous hotels, brunch,
even on a cruise,
and I still haven't had a breakfast like the ones prepared by Sylvia.
I'm going to convince her one day
to come and show us how to prepare breakfast.
But today it'll be my turn and I'm going to show you
how to make a Venezuelan dish typically served for breakfast:
Empanadas.
There are empanadas in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Galicia...
It's time for Venezuelan empanadas!
Empanada with fish pisillo
Avocado and garlic sauce
(Sumito) Today we're going to make Venezuelan empanadas with cornmeal
stuffed with fish pisillo cooked in a sofrito
and served with a guasacaca,
which is this amazingly delicious Venezuelan avocado sauce.
The first step to making a good empanada is to prepare the dough
which is made with this great product --originally from Venezuela--
the pre-cooked cornmeal.
This cornmeal is very easy to use because is pre-cooked
and these are the steps.
First, you'll need water but don't worry about the amount
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.
The amount of salt?
That will be up to you.
I eat low in sodium,
so mine's usually not very salty
but I like to focus on the flavor of the filling.
The water should taste the way you like your soup.
So it's up to your taste.
Let's try it.
Perfect.
I'm going to wet a clean kitchen towel.
What for?
Because later I'm going to leave the 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 cornmeal first and then the water
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 well this cornmeal,
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 that is very similar to play-doh.
Do you remember playing with 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.
Now, with this sllightly wet towel,
I'm going to cover it and let it rest so that it'll absorb the water.
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!
♪ (theme music) ♪
The next step 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,
is the natural coloring that the American continent gave to the world.
We use it with our food to give it a beautiful yellow color.
Dishes with this golden color seem to taste better.
If you serve rice with chicken,
one with white rice and the other with yellow rice,
the yellow one is always said to taste better.
How do you use it?
I start heating up some oil
and 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.
But 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.
Now I'm 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.
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 get rid of the roots of the cilantro--trust me
and, also, keep 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 these parts of the cilantro.
I'm cutting at this speed because I've been doing this for 30 years
but you should be careful
because I don't want you to have an accident in the kitchen.
Once everything is cut,
we'll start with the sofrito.
I'll add the oil and we'll start making it.
Add the stems and the roots of the cilantro.
(sizzling)
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.
Next, we'll add
garlic,
onion,
peppers.
Listen... wonderful!
I'm going to stir fry it very well so that all the flavors are amalgmated
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 of the pan heats up very well,
add tomato paste,
tomato passata,
tomato concentrate,
canned tomatoes,
or anything that 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 it gives to the sofrito,
just by cooking well 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 laying around
instead of throwing them out,
as it happens often because we don't know what to do them.
You can use this sofrito for a pasta, to make a sauce,
to make empanadas...
because I hope you'll make empanadas wherever you are.
(sizzling)
I just brought this from my kitchen--
This is also my workshop and my home
and I want to show it to you.
What I've got here is a cooked fish.
You can use any type of fish fillet,
I'm not going to tell you if we need anything in specific.
Here I have garlic cloves roughly chopped,
onions,
cilantro,
and the fish fillet, that should be cooked thoroughly.
This fish stock is wonderful.
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.
And now we're taking out the fish for the pisillo.
I'm going to show you a trick for this recipe
that I learned on the island of Margarita, in Venezuela,
where I lived for many years.
When I lived there I learned many cooking tricks like this one.
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,
once you've squeezed the water out.
Look at how wonderful!
They are like small threads and this is one of the secrets
of a good fish pisillo.
Now that we have our pisillo,
let's remember those three things that we learned while 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 empanadas.
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 the extra dough is removed.
Take a plastic film--
I'm really making them as if we 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 that ball of dough,
spread it on one side of the paper,
fold the other side of the paper to cover it,
and spread the dough a little bit more.
As you can see it's very easy, especially if you're using a plastic bag.
The best part is that what you've gotten here
is blank canvas named Latin America,
and these empanadas can be stuffed with anything.
If you're in the US, let's say, in Texas,
where they love to barbecue,
you can to stuff your empanadas with barbecued beef
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, the empanada is a blank canvas
that invites us all to seat at the table,
with our neighbors so that we can share what we are as Venezuelans,
and with our friends so that we can serve and spoil them,
This is how the empanada gathers us
and helps to extend our hands to each other.
Now, for the next step
we're going to stuff these empanadas with the pisillo.
Again, you can stuff it with anything.
We fold the empanada so that one ends covers the other,
and if you end up with extra dough, don't worry,
because then you could use a plate, for example, to cut it.
Look at this, I'm going to cut it...
This way, I get a perfect half-moon shaped empanada--
Actually, this is a wonderful empanada because it's very well stuffed.
As soon as the empanada is made, it needs to be fried immediately
because if you let it rest for too long
it'll begin to dehydrate and it will start to crack--
The dough will start cracking.
You should always check that the oil is really hot
by adding a tiny bit of dough...
It should look like the bubbles of something fizzling inside a glass.
I'll tell you an anecdote.
Because empanadas have different types of stuffing
when you eat them at the beach, for example, 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 is fish,
the ones with two little holes is beef,
and the ones with a hole on each side might be cheese, for example.
Now, we're going to make carefully one little hole and put it to fry.
Be careful when you're flipping it.
I always use two spoons,
so that this one here will receive the empanada, do you see it?
And then you can flip it.
I'm making it exactly the way they are.
So they're put in here like this
and you know which ones have the markings, etc.
Look how beautiful they look!
These empanadas are always served with a sauce,
so we're going to make a very simple one with avocado or palta,
as avocado is also known in some places.
Add some finely chopped garlic.
The amount is up to you.
In my case, I'm going to add a generous amount because I love it.
Cilantro leaves, and this way, we've used up the whole cilantro.
Some salt
and mayonnaise.
Any mayo will work, even if it's one made by yourself.
One of these days, I should probably teach you how to make it.
A little bit of milk to give it some texture
and avocado.
This one is very ripe, even better.
Remove the pit,
add the flesh to the blender,
and blend it like you're making an aioli but with avocado.
And we're going to serve it as if we were in front of the sea:
we get the empanada from the lady who just made it in front of your eyes
--like the ones we made--
and she will always have a sauce
in a container like this.
I'm starving!
More than hunger, it's gluttony because I love this.
Now, this is one of the most important things
in the theory of the empanada.
What am I talking about?
In all the empanadas the juices from the filling will end up here.
The French, technical name is el culito --the little butt.
Remember, el culito of the empanada,
and you need to blow it when you're eating it.
Because after your first bite
the steam will come out
and you'll need to blow the empanada.
The empanada tastes better when you blow it.
(crunching)
Hmmm... mmm.
The aroma that comes out of the empanada when you blow it--
And...
--this can also be a spicy sauce--
our avocado sauce.
(crunching)
Wonderful.
Welcome to my home.
♪ (outro music) ♪
This is not my YouTube channel.
This is the home where I want to invite you,
my space, my workshop.
Please, subscribe and share with others
because I will make what you want me to make.
Write and share your comments about the recipes that you want to see.
We're going to meet here every week.
English subtitles by Jenny Lam-Chowdhury