No. 25 - Bolivia’s Saucy Soggy-Bottomed Saltenas!

Saltenas are perfect snack for those complete write-off days, when you’re too hung-over to leave and would rather stay home ‘crawling’ the couch. They’re loaded with carbs and meat, salty, spicy and of course sumptuously fatty - a hangover cure in a mouthful. This was of course no use to us, as once again we discovered too late that saltenas take a little longer to prepare than we were willing to wait. A whole lot longer, in fact.  Turns out the mixture needed a quiet night in (the fridge) to quite literally, chill - much like ourselves. Instead, we had them the next day for lunch before embarking on our next hangover.

Saltenas

Choosing to make saltenas, was really just another excuse to eat empanadas (see Argentina), under another name and another country. They are pretty much exactly the same, but the filling is much saucier. You can get away with dodgy pastry sealing and greedily overstuffing empanadas, but when it comes to saltenas you’re better off taking your time and doing it right. Needless to say, I ended up with a baking tray full of burnt filling and some seriously soggy-bottomed saltenas. Not to worry, like I’ve said before, in my eye’s there is absolutely nothing you can do to ruin puff pastry. And the puff pastry is a total cheat, by the way (see Albania) so if you want the authentic recipe for saltena pastry I suggest you google it.

Serves 4 – 6 (really 6 – 8)

a little oil for frying

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 potatoes, peeled and diced quite small

1 cup of peas

225g minced beef

1 cup of stock (I used a stock cube)

½ envelope of gelatin

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne

ready made puff pastry, rolled out as thin as possible

1 egg, for brushing

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until softened. Add the meat, spices and fry until browned. Add the stock and simmer for roughly 30 minutes.

In another pan of salted boiling water, cook the potatoes and peas until tender.

Add the potatoes and peas to the meat mixture, along with the gelatin dissolved in a little water. Stir very well to ensure everything is thoroughly incorporated. Allow to cool and let chill in the fridge over night.

The next day…

Roll out the puff pastry and cut out as many circle as you can (I cut around a little saucer). Dollop a tablespoon or so of the cold filling onto the centre of each pastry circle. Brush around the edges with beaten egg and (attempt to) seal the edges using your thumb and fingers, making an empanada half moon shape. Lay on a baking tray, brush with more beaten egg and cook in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celsius for roughly 15 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Say a prayer the filling doesn’t leak! Scoff hot.