With the upcoming move, we had to throw one last epic brunch in our apartment – revisiting some of my favorite Ina recipes with our New York framily!
We kicked off the meal with Ina’s Ham & Leek Empanadas from Make It Ahead. These empanadas are incredibly simple to prepare, using store-bought puff pastry filled with a delicious combination of ham, gruyere cheese, spinach, leek, basil, parmesan, and creme fraiche. A bake in the oven results in golden brown, super flakey parcels with so much melty goodness inside.
They are delicious on their own, but I always like to turn up the volume with my making Aji Amarillo Sauce – a creamy, spicy Peruvian dip with cilantro and jalapeño – for dipping these in.
Although the original recipe yields 12 large empanadas, since we were serving them as an appetizer, I decided to cut each pastry sheet into 9 squares and filled them with about a tablespoon of filling each, resulting in approximately 30 mini empanadas.
These have been a favorite for years, and I think they are a new favorite of my friends.
Book: Make It Ahead, page 70
Rating: 5/5
How Easy Is That: Easy
Store-Bought Is Fine: Puff pastry
Pricey Ingredients: —
Hard-to-find: —
Recipe on Oprah.com.
I ALWAYS serve this with Green Peruvian Dipping Sauce – I can rarely find the aji amarillo paste so typically just leave that out.
