Jezabel Careaga Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and cookbook author, and my fourth book is coming out this fall. Each Saturday, I'm hanging out with the sweetest bakers around and taking a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today's guest is Jezabel Careaga. Jezabel is the chef and owner of Jezabel's, a beloved Argentine restaurant and bakery in Philadelphia. She opened her establishment in 2010 and is known for having some of the city's best empanadas. Jezabel joins me today to chat about her early memories of cooking with her grandmother, her culinary journey from Argentina to the U.S., and how she manages her restaurant and bespoke furniture business. Then, peeps, we talk about her classic empanada recipe. You're going to love hearing about the process and learning Jezabel's secrets for forming these crispy comforting pockets of deliciousness. Don't forget to visit cherrybombe.com for today's recipe. Stay tuned for my chat with Jezabel.
Thank you to Plugra Premium European-Style Butter for supporting today's show. As some of you know, I've been a big fan of Plugra for some time now and was introduced to it at my very first bakery job when I was just a newbie baker. Fast-forward to today, I'm a professional baker, cookbook author, and recipe developer, and I continue to rely on Plugra for all my baking needs. My fridge is always stocked with Plugra sticks and solids. I especially love that Plugra contains 82% butterfat. The higher butterfat content means less moisture and more fat, and as bakers know, fat equals flavor. Plugra butter is also slow churned to making it more pliable and easy to work with. I do a lot of baking this time of year for work and for myself and my family. Comfy bakes like my pistachio chocolate anytime buns and cinnamon sugar buttermilk donut holes, and I always reach for Plugra unsalted butter. I've also been making a lot of yeasted breads lately and I love the buttery flavor Plugra adds to my dough. Plugra Premium European-Style Butter is the perfect choice, from professional kitchens to your home kitchen. Ask for Plugra at your favorite grocery store or visit plugra.com for a store locator and recipes.
Let's check in with today's guest. Jezabel, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk empanadas with you and so much more.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes, well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
So you were born and raised in Northwest Argentina and I've read that you learned your family's recipes alongside your mom and your grandmother, and I wondered, were the recipes that you were learning and the things you were cooking with them, were you doing baking as well as cooking when you were little, or was it mostly just cooking?
Jezabel Careaga:
I mean, it's a mixture of both. And today, also, it's a mixture of both. There was a lot of running around in the kitchen with my grandma when she was making pasta and gnocchi and peeling potato, but once a week or so, she will make bread as well just to have bread for the week. So I also grew up around baking with her... So there is a mixture of sweet and savory, and that's what she did. And my mother was a great baker as well, she always made the alfajores, pastafrola, and also, she made our birthday cakes. So that was something that I grew up and then just, whenever I could, I will be a part of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I know that when you were cooking and baking with your mom and your grandmother, there were no recipes that were ever written down, and so when you now tried to develop recipes that remind you of home, you have to approximate what the recipe is from your taste memory.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
How does that work? You have the idea of the thing they made and you want to replicate it, but you can only remember how it tasted?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I think with any creative hands-on thing that I make, I always start on what I want it to feel like or I want it to taste like. Yeah, my grandma had no recipe, my mom had no recipes. There is one recipe I rescued from my mom, which is alfajor de maicena. The same recipe we make today, we used to make it when I was five, six years old, which to me, is amazing to think, 35 years ago, I was doing that. But everything else has been, I don't know, two tablespoons of these, three tablespoons of that, and then I learned to use a scale for anything and everything. And that's how I got to be like, "I need a little more paprika, I need a little less chili flakes."
Now, if you ask me to develop a recipe, I was like, "We're going to use 500 grams of beef. I need five grams of salt, three grams of chili flakes," and it works, because now I have learned, over time, the proportions. So I know that you maybe began baking alfajores when you were five or six years old and your mom would make them sometimes for birthdays and special occasions. You also talked about early memories of you being in the kitchen, being the dishwasher for your grandmother and your mother, which is so cute when you were little, and then also pretending to be a merchant, pretending you had a little shop when you were a little girl. I thought that was so dear. Does this mean that, from an early age, you knew that you would pursue food as an adult? Was it already something that excited you in that way?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes. You're taking me to my parents' garage, you really are. And yeah, part of my heart is I'm a merchant. I love to just the interaction, the shopping, the selling. My parents and my grandma's backyard were my playground. I was a very free child, spirited-wise. And I used to gather stones and little leaves and I pretended that I have my little grocery store and I had this little cross-body little bag that most likely I got it for a birthday or something. Yeah, those are very vivid memories. I haven't asked my parents if I ever mentioned about being... Back then, "I want to bake, I want to cook," or, "I want to have my own store," but I do have those images very clear on my mind.
I did have this idea when I was 24, I was finishing business school, I was developing the business plan for the company I was working for, and I had a little extra time and then I was like, "Well, maybe I should make a plan for the day that I'm 38, 40 and I have my own tea house with a catering side and then I have all these windows around me and there is a lot of light, we have an open kitchen. Yeah, after I had my career, that's what I will do," and it happened when I was 26, 27. Those things come around and when you're in your mid-twenties, you're like, "Sure, I'll do it. That sounds like good." And here I am, and then I got to be 38, 40 and then I was like, "I already had the career and I did the business. What do I do now?"
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that, I love that. You did study hospitality management and received your MBA, so you already knew you wanted to be in that world of... I guess that merchant world in a sense of dealing with the customer, of hospitality. And then you came to the United States and you founded Jezabel's Cafe and Bakery. And just to clarify, did you go to school in Argentina or did you go to school here?
Jezabel Careaga:
I went to school in Argentina, I did hotel management, and then I did business. Languages was always part of my life, so I just kept studying that and, yeah, I moved here when I was 25.
Jessie Sheehan:
How old were you when you opened the cafe?
Jezabel Careaga:
I believe I was 27, because we opened in 2010.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Jezabel Careaga:
I moved to Philly in the summer of 2009 to start working on it. It took way longer than I expected. As it usually takes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yeah. In June 2010, we opened and now I'm looking ahead and I'm looking back, because in a way, I'm looking at June 2025 when we will turn 15. I'm also looking back and, wow, it's been 15 years.
Jessie Sheehan:
Jezabel's Cafe and Bakery, it's in Philadelphia. It's been described, or maybe you describe it, as a modern expression of Northwestern Argentine traditions, very much inspired by your grandmother who you obviously spent a lot of time with her. And I know it was updated interpretation of Argentinian pastries and empanadas and homey dishes that you grew up with, as opposed to just focusing on steak and red wine.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yeah. I mean, there is a lot of thought about what I wanted to offer. When I think of Argentina, the main meal is lunch, so I think my major offerings, I wanted to be around breakfast, lunch. Dinner is not as important as lunch is. I think of my grandmother's house and it was very warm and open, there is this kindness and just warmth to people in Argentina that I think I want to relay to the people that walks into Jezabel's today. Yeah, I don't think there was a specific thought about, "Don't serve the steak." It was more about the lunch light bite, what you will eat every day. To me, the steak, I always think of a big dinner or the big Sunday lunch, and I wanted to be a little more homey-like. What do we eat at home every day? And I think that's empanadas and that is soup and that is a good salad, something that you share lightly, and then you keep moving on with your day.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I know that you serve traditional Argentinian fair like empanadas. Tartas, is that quiche?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, like quiche. Obviously, the food in the cafe is extremely important to you, but the vibe and the environment of the cafe is really important to you, too. There's beautiful wood furniture and these white walls and it's important to you aesthetically, but it's also important to you, because you are a master woodworker and furniture maker and you make all of the furniture in the cafe, as well as cutting boards. Tell me, how did this happen? Was this all... When you were that little girl pretending to be a merchant, were you also at a woodworking table building something out of wood?
Jezabel Careaga:
Oh, my goodness. You have done your research, you are really surprising me. I remember, in my teenage years, just wanted to have some coffee tables in the living room and then just bugging my dad over and over and over again. "Can you please get the woods? Can you please da, da, da?" I don't even know if those tables still exist, I actually should ask him. I remember assembling those tables with him most likely. My grandfather on my dad's side, he made the table where I grew up having my meals as a kid, and I didn't put that one-plus-one together until, actually, a few years ago when I was sitting at Jezabel's. The walls are white, like my grandmother used to paint her house, and then I'm sitting at a table that I made, which is that memory of my grandfather making the table where I grew up having my meals as a kid.
I'm a very hands-on person. The process of making food and making furniture is actually not that different to me, or at least on my mind, because you start with really good materials. In food, it's ingredients. In furniture, it's good wood, locally-sourced. When I pick the wood, I'm usually thinking what I want it to look like. Am I highlighting the grain of the wood? I usually don't cover it up and I try to use as many sustainable finishes as I can. When it comes to food, don't do much. I just grab the ingredients, I put them together, and I try to highlight each thing. So the way that I think about food is very similar to the way I think about furniture.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everybody. This is Kerry Diamond from Radio Cherry Bombe and I have a little housekeeping for you. Cherry Bombe is on the road. We're hosting eight events this summer and traveling from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon with lots of stops in between. Head to cherrybombe.com to check out our events calendar and see if we're coming to a town near you, or maybe our travel schedules will overlap. That would be fun. This Thursday, June 6th, team Cherry Bombe will be at Alma Cafe in New Orleans as part of our Sit With Us dinner series with OpenTable. Head to Alma Cafe, that's A-L-M-A. On the OpenTable app or website, click on the experiences tab and get a ticket. Come solo and sit with us or come with some friends and we'll sit you together. It's going to be a fun night with beautiful food and all of you beautiful people.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, now let's talk about empanadas. Woodworking to empanadas. So yours have the name, "Some of the best in Philadelphia." Can you tell us what empanada means? I think I read... Does it mean "Between bread"?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
That right?
Jezabel Careaga:
Pan is bread, empanar, which means covering with bread, it will be the process when you bread a piece of beef or chicken or fish. And then, on the other side, you have empanada, it's when it's something that is close with this kind of bread. We have this strong Spanish influence, we have empanadas all over the world, we have dumplings in Asian culture. How I think there is a mix on how it gets to Argentina is through the empanada de cajeta, which is like a half-size pie. It is stuffed with tuna, onions, red bell peppers, very tasty, and that's one of the versions that I believe we get in Argentina, and that's how we start having empanadas. Now, what changes mainly from Spain to Argentina, it is the size. So our empanadas are around four-and-a-half, five inches. The big size empanada empanada de cajeta is half size of a nine-inch pan. So this size definitely-
Jessie Sheehan:
Almost like a big calzone.
Jezabel Careaga:
Exactly, yes, exactly. It's funny, because sometimes I visit my friends in Seattle that they have a Filipino restaurant and they have their own version of an empanada, because the Filipinos, they also have the influence of Spaniards. So yes, I will say empanada is something between bread. We use savory fillings in Argentina.
Jessie Sheehan:
And can you tell us the different flavors at that cafe? Like I read about maybe spicy corn, onion, leak, and cheese and spicy lentil. Oh, my god. Tell me. And also, I read... Is there's a sleeper hit, the fugazza? Leak, onion, and mozzarella cheese? That's what I want, fugazza.
Jezabel Careaga:
So actually, that's an interpretation of a pizza in Buenos Aires. There is a pizza in Buenos Aires called fugazza that is white onions with cheese and oregano. I love leaks, but I didn't grow up with leaks, but I want to add leaks. So there is always this kind of like, "I didn't grow up with it, but I would like to add it, so let's come up with something." So I grabbed the flavors of that pizza and then we came up with these onions, leaks, cheese, and a little bit of oregano. But then the beef ones, the traditional beef ones that we have, it's a mixture of a recipe. From one side is the memories of the beef feeling that my grandmas used to make, a little bit of spicy paprika, cumin, and then I love raisins on my empanadas. We used to go to my auntie Nati's house and she always put raisins on her empanadas.
It's not common to find an empanada in Jujuy, where I grew up, with raisins, but you will find it at my auntie Nati's. So I was like, "That's the way I like it, that's the way I'm going to do it."
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that, I love that. And I know that the empanadas in the cafe are usually served with a smattering of pickled vegetables and sauces.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh.
Jezabel Careaga:
There is one sauce that we have in Northwest Argentina that is also served in the south of Bolivia, it's called llajua. It's tomatoes, some pickle, sometimes fresh chile, and a little bit of onions and some oil. We serve that sauce sometimes on a special events. At Jezabel's right now, we serve it with chimichurri, which adds an extra layer of flavors. We can also serve it, as you said, with some pickles and we have pickle eggplant as well. It's funny, because I just came back from Argentina and it's almost everywhere I ate, they all have pickled eggplant. And I had that recollection from my grandmother's kitchen, but I didn't know that now everyone is serving pickled eggplant. So we do have these pickled eggplant, a little more Spanish style garlic, parsley, little chili flake, and bay leaf. I love a really good bay leaf.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right, so first things first with the empanadas, we're going to make the dough.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And so in a bowl... Do you like to use metal bowls from a restaurant supply store? Do you like a glass bowl?
Jezabel Careaga:
I like a glass bowl more than a stainless steel, but also, I love to make the empanada dough in the mixer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Good. Well, we'll talk about both ways.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes, this is a super easy dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Jezabel Careaga:
So we're going to start with King Arthur flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
All-purpose.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
That one has a good amount of protein. And consistently, you're going to get a good dough. So you put your flour into the bowl, you make a little well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Would you add salt as well with the flour before you make the well?
Jezabel Careaga:
Not really.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
I'm going to want the salt to melt, so that's coming up next. We're going to add the water, olive oil, and then-
Jessie Sheehan:
And is there a brand of olive oil that you like?
Jezabel Careaga:
I try to use extra virgin olive oil. Cecco, I believe, Italian, but I was just in Argentina and I tried this variety that is called Arauco from this company called Suelos from the Zuccardi family in Mendoza. This olive oil is insane, like a little spicy. I brought, actually, with me a fair amount of olive oil and I'm going to start tasting my recipes with that olive oil. I'm super excited. But otherwise, any olive oil that you have at home. You can use canola oil, you can use grape seed oil. For health reasons, I prefer to keep my kitchen at home and at work clean and only use olive oil, but you can use any oil, actually. So we're going to pour our oil on top of the lukewarm water and then we're going to put a little pinch of salt.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we have the well in the flour, we pour in water, we pour in oil, and a little pinch of salt.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes. If you're going to use it dough the next day, and I will suggest adding a tad of lemon juice that you just squeeze a little bit of lemon on the water or a little bit of white vinegar.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now why do you need the acid?
Jezabel Careaga:
Actually, we're going to use it a little more acid preservative, so that's going to keep the dough not going brownish. So if you're working on any recipe that is a pie dough, definitely empanada dough, something that you're going to roll, to your water, you can always add a few drops of lemon juice or white vinegar and that's going to protect the dough of going brown. And then the dough is going to last two, three, five days and you're actually lengthening the life of the dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Incredible. It's funny, in my pie dough recipe, I add a little bit of apple cider vinegar, but I always thought I was adding it more for a little bit of a tang, and so it's a little bit easier to roll out, but that's so interesting, thinking about it as a little bit of a preservative.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes, and it definitely helps with the coloring.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jezabel Careaga:
You can try your dough without vinegar and your dough with vinegar. I usually suggest people to do those things at home as an experiment. You're going to eat them anyway, but if you just put the same dough for three days, four days on the fridge, you're going to see how one deteriorates a little bit faster.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So we're going to mix together our flour and our salt, our olive oil, our water, and our little bit of acid, and we're going to begin to mix it. Are we going to mix it in the bowl? Are we going to mix it on the counter?
Jezabel Careaga:
No, I suggest doing it on the bowl.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
So I like to use just spoon, so a start-
Jessie Sheehan:
Wooden spoon or metal spoon?
Jezabel Careaga:
Just any spoon that you have at home. And then you just start using a spoon and start mixing it. It's going to become lumpy, so we're going to start having larger lumps the more we mix. That usually takes around three to four minutes. Actually, it comes together pretty fast.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
Then when it's really lumpy, that's when we clean up the bowl and then we go to the surface.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, if we wanted to do this in a stand mixer, we would reuse the dough hook?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And would we go for three to five minutes, or is it much faster?
Jezabel Careaga:
It's around the same time.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yeah, because you want the dough to be really nice and soft, more like a brioche dough, so when you make it, it's really nice and soft and there are no lumps. So that's what you want your dough to look like.
Jessie Sheehan:
And what speed on the mixer would you do?
Jezabel Careaga:
So you use the first speed. In the case that you do it on the mixer, you put all your ingredients on the mixer, the same hook, you mix it up a little bit, and you start it. Three to four minutes, you mix it. If we do it on the counter, we do the same thing. We're going to bring it into a bowl as together as we can and then, with the same bowl that you used to mix it in, you're just going to let it rest for at least 15 to 20 minutes, because we're going to relax... The gluten is going to be relaxed and then you can mix it up again. So it's going to be a two-time kneading situation.
Jessie Sheehan:
Two different kneads. And is there a special stand mixer that you love, that you use at home?
Jezabel Careaga:
I love KitchenAid. Yeah, and I think it's six quart, eight quart. Now, I make bigger batches, right? If you have the smaller at home, of course it works. But yeah, I think KitchenAid is definitely my favorite.
Jessie Sheehan:
Great. So we're going to cover the kneaded dole. If it's in the bowl, we'll cover it with a towel or, if it's on the counter, we'll just cover it with the bowl. We can flip the bowl over and we'll allow it to rest around 15 minutes or so. After it's rested, we'll knead again for two to three minutes.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And what are we looking for? Quite smooth, is it soft?
Jezabel Careaga:
You want a soft dough. Before rolling it, we're going to let it rest. So after our second knead, we're going to let it rest a little bit again, and then we're going to cut it in half or in quarters. We're going to start flattening it with the palm of our hands.
Jessie Sheehan:
And is this on a flowered surface? Do we need flour?
Jezabel Careaga:
Lightly flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Lightly, okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
Lightly flour. We don't want to add too much flour to the dough, because then we start drying it out and it's going to become harder as we get towards the end of the dough as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we've cut our dough in half, we're spreading the dough out just with the palm of our hand, no rolling pin yet until the dough is about a quarter inch thick.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we can start rolling the dough with the rolling pin.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you have a certain type of rolling pin or a certain brand of rolling pin that you like?
Jezabel Careaga:
I like the one with the handles, that's the easiest one.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Jezabel Careaga:
I grew up rolling the dough with the French one, I believe. The one that doesn't have the handles.
Jessie Sheehan:
With tapered edges or straight-
Jezabel Careaga:
Taper edges.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Jezabel Careaga:
I grew up with that one, but I do prefer the one with the handles. We want to lightly flower the surface, but you don't want to do too much. I have this reference when I do cooking classes and people see me doing demonstrations. You want to treat your dough like it's a delicate piece of silk. You don't want it to stick to the surface, so you're going to have enough flour to be able to move it and to shift it, but if you treat it like a delicate piece of silk, you're going to really put your hands underneath, lift it up, fold it in half, flour a little bit, roll it again. That will be my way to do it. You want to get it an eighth of an inch of thickness. We're talking about two, three millimeters. You don't want your dough to be too thick or you don't want your dough to be too thin. So usually, when we cut a circle around five inches, each circle is between 32 and 34 grams.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's good to know.
Jezabel Careaga:
That gives you a good idea to know if you are on track.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do we use a large cookie cutter or a large biscuit? Like the five-inch cutter?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's just something that you purchase.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yeah, you can buy that on Amazon. There is this brand called Ateco.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Jezabel Careaga:
We buy their cookie cutters. We use the largest one for the empanadas, we use the medium-sized ones for scones, and then we use the smaller ones for the alfajores.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, perfect.
Jezabel Careaga:
So this is the one thing that you have on your drawer, but then you can use it for several things.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Jezabel Careaga:
So I definitely recommend that one, and that's the best brand, because we have tried many that are a little more flimsy, they're not as sturdy, but that definitely always works.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then once we've rolled out our dough, we've cut it into five-inch circles, can you use the scraps? Can you put the scraps back and re-roll those? And then we put our five-inch circles in a stack and then, do we cover it?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes. So what I usually will recommend is, if you have some kind of plastic container, Pyrex with a lead, those are the best ways to do it. I definitely suggest a Pyrex with a lead, because then you just do 10 to 12 per stack. You want to maintain and keep the moisture of the circle, so that's why we don't use a lot of flour when we are rolling the dough and we're not going to add more flour once we cut the circle, we just pile them up. You will be surprised, but you have to trust me on this one, that the circles are not going to glue up together. If you follow this recipe to the tee, the grams of water that you're supposed to, you shouldn't have a problem.
If the dough is a little bit wet, then they're going to tend to stick to one another. But if the dough is the right consistency, you shouldn't have a problem. The other thing that I recommend, once you pile your little circles, you put it on a tight silk container, send it to the fridge. And actually, the circles work better the day after than the day of. So this is something that you're like, "Today, I'm going to do my empanada prep." So you do your circles, you do your filling, let everything chill and set a little bit, and then the next day, you're going to have better empanada circles and a tastier feeling.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that, I love that. I love anything you can make ahead. So we're going to make the beef filling, we're going to heat some olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. We're going to saute some onions until clear, maybe three to four minutes. We're going to add some ground sirloin beef, breaking it down, mixing with the onions. We're going to add some salt, is the salt kosher? Do you like to use kosher?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yeah, we use kosher salt. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, yep. And then some paprika and cumin and chili flakes. Mix that up, let it cook for seven to 10 minutes, and then you say remove from the heat, transfer to a bowl, and chill for two hours or overnight for best results. And it's just the flavors of the filling. I understand the empanada shells, because those are... Of course, you're relaxing the gluten by letting it rest for longer, so they're going to be tastier and easier to work with, but the filling is the same, it allows all those flavors to meld together overnight, so it's tastier.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes. But I will also say it's also for technical reasons, because you want a filling that has set. The one thing I would recommend about the beef. If you have a good butcher, ask your butcher to get the beef on a coarse ground. Then, that way, you are biting into a little more of meat than it's pasty. I'm very, very careful always about texture. When I think about a bite of food, I want it to be crusty, I want it to be juicy, I want it to bite into something. If you have a butcher as your butcher, coarse ground, single ground. Those two things are super important. And then we let all the flavor sit. When we're scooping the filling to go into the dough, if it's lightly warm or hot, it is going to have the effect that is going to soften the dough, and then your dough is going to become a little bit messy and it's going to spread out, so that's why you don't want a warmish kind of a filling.
Everything sets, the meat gets tastier, and then you use it the next day. And also, you can take it out of the fridge and soften it up a little bit just by being at room temperature, because you want to be able to scoop it when you're shaping your empanada, but you definitely don't want it to be warm.
Jessie Sheehan:
Once the mixture's cold, we're going to add some scallions and we're also going to add some olives. What kind of olives do you like to use?
Jezabel Careaga:
Just any green olive, like a manzanilla is good or any green olive that you get at the supermarket is good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Like you said about your aunt and her raisins, we're going to add one or two raisins when shaping. Why do we wait to add the raisins and why so few? Why wouldn't you put in more raisins?
Jezabel Careaga:
Because I'm that particular.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Jezabel Careaga:
I'm sorry.
Jessie Sheehan:
No.
Jezabel Careaga:
The reason that we're put one to two raisin is because I don't want it to become this whole sweet thing. I don't mix in the raisins, because the raisins are going to soak the filling flavor and then you're going to get a hint of sweet, but it's not going to be that much sweet. If you mix the raisins also in the filling, they're going to get lost, so you might get one empanada that has a spoonful of raisins and you might get an empanada that maybe had none. So you can control a little more by putting a spread out in the empanada, so you get one when you're taking their first bite, maybe you don't get more in the empanada, maybe you get a second one. The raisin is a surprise.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So now we're going to assemble, we're going to place the empanada dough circle on the counter, not floured, we don't need to flour at this point. We're going to put the moist side of the circle up. So if one side is a little bit more moist than the other, that one is facing up, and we're going to put one tablespoon full or one spoonful of the filling in the middle of the moist side, almost in like a egg-like shape.
Jezabel Careaga:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then add our or two raisins.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then we'll close up our empanada and we're pinching it now. Are we using an egg wash or any water to pinch the dough together?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes and no.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay.
Jezabel Careaga:
So here, this is when the moisture side of your empanada circle is super important. One little trick that I have before I start assembling. So remember that we have our stack of, let's say, 12 circles. The one that is on top, the circle that is on top is going to have less pressure, so what I tend to do, I grab the two or three circles on top and I move them to the bottom, and then I flip the bottom up. So then, that way, by the time I get to the bottom, they're going to have a little bit of pressure and then they're going to gain the moisture that they may have lost for being on the top. So that's one trick. I'm so used to do that. Then when we're grabbing the circle, always choose the moisture side. If your empanada dough has been out on your kitchen and it gets a little bit dry, if you have to wet because it's not closing, then you're going to wet only half of the circle, because if you have too much water, it's not going to close.
If it's too dry, it's not going to close. So then you're also going to lightly wet with your finger one half and then you create this little corner on a circle and then you start closing.
Jessie Sheehan:
Almost like a little half moon.
Jezabel Careaga:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And are there any crimping tips? I read that the different crimps can show the different filling inside.
Jezabel Careaga:
At Jezabel's we have, I'm going to say, between eight to 10 different crimpings, based on the fillings, because we do those many fillings. I will say there are so many ways to be creative. There is a traditional one that is called a braid, and that's the hardest one to master. So you are going to start turning your fingers and creating a little braid with the border of the dough. One important thing before I get a little ahead of myself. Once we close the empanada and it's in half moon shape, we're going to have a little border of dough. We need to make sure that border of the dough is properly closed, so it's not like halfway closed or is opening up. So just press it a second time or third time if you have to. Once you have done that, you start playing about, how do you want your empanada to look like?
One of them is creating this kind of braid. On my case, I do it with my right-hand side and it's a little play that I have between my thumb, my index, and my middle finger. So I start doing this little braid. That's one. Another one that you can do is shaping a little Z with your fingertips as well. So you just create a Z and then you press right underneath, so then the border is going to become a little plumper, but then it opens up a little bit.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it similar to how you pinch to crimp a pie dough?
Jezabel Careaga:
It could be also similar to a pie dough. We have a crimping for the beef and the lentil empanadas that is similar to a pie dough. So you can get creative here, but also you have to be patient. You have to be very patient with yourself, because you can make beautiful empanadas, it just takes time and practice.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So then we're going to place our empanadas on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and do you have a favorite kind of baking sheet? You like them to have a lip, you like them to be heavy?
Jezabel Careaga:
Not really. I use what we use for restaurants mainly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Jezabel Careaga:
So whatever something that looks like that, it's fine with me.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right.
Jezabel Careaga:
Especially if you're using a pan that is aluminum. No matter what you do, you always want to have paper, because otherwise, we're always getting a little bit of leaching of aluminum into the food, and that's the reason why I always suggest parchment paper.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes. And then we're going to egg wash the tops of the empanadas.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And do you have a certain recipe with an egg wash? Do you like a little bit of milk or a little bit of water or a little bit of salt, or is it just an egg?
Jezabel Careaga:
An egg and a little bit of water. It's usually like two tablespoons of water per egg approximately, and you just break the egg with the water on a fork and that's what you use.
Jessie Sheehan:
Sounds good.
Jezabel Careaga:
Done, easy.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we're going to bake at around 425, 450 degrees for about 14 to 18 minutes until the dough is golden.
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
I wanted to ask you about one more recipe. Can you tell me about the alfajores?
Jezabel Careaga:
Well, alfajores, I would say, it's a pretty straightforward recipe. You can find many online. I'm sure our recipe is floating somewhere on the internet as well. But we start by creaming the butter and the sugar, then we have all the dry ingredients mixed, already pre-weighted. We add that on top, then we add our wet ingredients, we form a dough. This dough, we let it sit for a few minutes. We put it on the mixer, once it comes together, we let it sit, because we want a little bit of the sugar to start melting with eggs, and then we do a second mix that is, again, another one to two minutes. And then the dough is ready for rolling. So we are going to roll it in parchment paper and then we're going to cut the cookies around two inches. You can go from one and a half to two inches. We bake those cookies, 350 degrees, 14 minutes. Easy bake. You need to let the cookies cool off before you are assembling here, and this is super important.
If you need to send them to the freezer for a little of time to make sure they're nice and firm, because this is a very fragile cookie. And then we're going to add the dulce de leche, we're going to pipe it or you're going to help yourself with a little spatula or even a knife, and then you're going to spread it evenly. You close it as a sandwich with another cookie. I will use this reference about spackling or when you're icing a cake as well. So you wiggle a little bit, your cookie sandwich, so then that way you get your dulce de leche spread out. You don't want to press in the middle hard, because the cookie can break. So we are going to wiggle, wiggle, wiggle the dulce de leche, and then we're going to use the little dulce de leche that comes off the edges to ice it and make it nice and straight around the edges, and then we're going to roll that into coconut.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. And when we're icing that edge, we're using our fingertip?
Jezabel Careaga:
Yes, you're using your fingertip.
Jessie Sheehan:
Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Jezabel. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Jezabel Careaga:
Thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Plugra Premium European-Style Butter for supporting today's show. Don't forget to subscribe to She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network and is recorded at CityVox Studio in Manhattan. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu and our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.