Empanadas, Mendoza-Style Beef and Olive

Ingredients

• 500g beef mince (15% fat)
• 2 medium onions, finely diced
• 1 red pepper, finely diced
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• 50g raisins
• 100g pitted green olives, roughly chopped
• 3 hard-boiled eggs, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 beef stock cube
• 100ml water
• salt and black pepper
• 12 empanada pastry discs (shop-bought, around 12-13cm)
• 1 egg, beaten with 1 tbsp milk for egg wash
• plain flour, for dusting

Method

1. Start the filling the night before if you can — Mendoza empanadas are built on a cold filling, because warm filling steams the pastry from the inside and you'll end up with a soggy bottom. Heat the olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat and add the onions, red pepper and a generous pinch of salt. Cook for 8–10 minutes until the onions are completely soft, translucent and just catching colour at the edges — this is your flavour base, so don't rush it.
2. Add the garlic, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano and chilli flakes. Stir for 30–60 seconds, just until fragrant and the kitchen fills with that warm paprika smell — you're blooming the spices in the oil so they taste of themselves rather than dusty. Watch the garlic; pale gold is what you want, not brown. Burnt garlic turns the whole filling bitter.
3. Push the vegetables to one side, turn the heat up, and add the beef mince in two batches to the bare pan. Don't crowd it — all at once and the pan floods, water comes out, and you've boiled the meat instead of browning it. Season the mince generously with salt and pepper as it hits the pan, leave it untouched for 2–3 minutes to get a proper sear on the underside, then break it up. Colour on the meat means flavour.
4. Once both batches are back in, crumble in the stock cube and add the water. Simmer for 5 minutes until the liquid has almost gone but the mixture still looks glossy and moist, not dry.
5. Off the heat, stir in the raisins and the spring onions. Taste and season hard — pastry dulls seasoning, so the filling needs to taste slightly over-seasoned on its own. Taste again, adjust now, not at the table. Spread the filling on a tray to cool, then chill for at least an hour, ideally overnight. The olives and eggs go in cold, just before filling — adding them now would turn the eggs rubbery and the olives muddy.
6. When you're ready to assemble, preheat the oven to 200°C fan and line two baking trays with greaseproof. Stir the chopped olives and chopped hard-boiled eggs through the cold filling.
7. Lay a pastry disc on a lightly floured surface. Place a heaped tablespoon of filling slightly off-centre — overfilling is the number one empanada killer, because the pastry won't seal and the filling weeps out in the oven. Brush the rim with egg wash, fold the pastry over into a half-moon, and press the edges firmly, pushing out any air pockets as you go.
8. Now the repulgue. Starting at one corner, fold a small section of the sealed edge over itself at a 45-degree angle, press down, then fold the next section over the previous fold. Work along the curve like you're plaiting a rope — each fold locks the last one in place. If the crimp feels fiddly the first time, that's normal; by empanada four you'll have the rhythm. A fork-crimp is honest backup if needed.
9. Place on the trays, brush generously with egg wash, and bake for 22–25 minutes until deeply golden — pale empanadas taste of raw flour, so push them further than feels comfortable. The pastry should look lacquered and burnished, not blonde.
10. Rest for 5 minutes before eating — the filling is volcanic straight from the oven. Pile the empanadas onto a board, spoon the chimichurri into a bowl alongside, scatter the rocket and red onion salad on the side, and put out the lemon wedges for a squeeze of lemon over the first one you tear open — the acid cuts through the rich, olive-savoury filling.