Smoked Beef Empanadas
The cut of beef I smoke more often than not is brisket, and a chunk of meat that size means I'm almost certain to be rewarded with leftovers. This has lead a lot of recipes in recent years to center smoked brisket, and I keep a running list of ideas of how to use those remains in creative ways. One of those was for smoked beef empanadas, but the day I smoked the brisket that was going to be used in that recipe was also the day I was breaking in my new 22-inch Weber Bullet, and I had something I wasn't used to on my 18-inch model—excess space. So while out shopping, I decided to also pick up a beef cheek that I smoked alongside the brisket, and it's that beef that ended up being the base of the filling for these amazing spicy empanadas.
Since the recipe was originally designed to make use of leftover brisket, you can certainly skip the special smoking of beef cheek to make these empanadas—whether you already have leftovers or just want to pick up some brisket at your local barbecue joint, there's so much else going on in this filling that you're pretty assured to come out on the other side with almost identical results. Since I did decide to do a purpose smoked piece of beef though, I used that opportunity to make a rub that would compliment the final flavor profile of the filling. This entire recipe is loosely Argentinian-influenced, so the rub used common ingredients found in that cuisine like paprika, garlic, oregano, and crushed red pepper.
I had smoked beef cheeks for the first time last summer, so I had some frame of reference for how long this would take to cook at 225°F and timed it so the beef would go in before I went to sleep, and would be close to ready by the time I arose. This is pretty much exactly what happened with the cheek hitting the 203°F internal temperature mark I was shooting for around 9:00am. I held the wrapped cheek in the Cambro for a bit before placing it in the fridge because I wasn't going to be making the rest of the filling for a couple days.
When I say you can probably use any smoked beef and have this recipe turn out similar, that's because I built a ton of flavor into the filling which started with sautéing onions until softened, then adding in a lot of spices, tomato paste, and jalapeños. Next I added cubed Yukon Golds and chicken stock and let those simmer until the spuds were soft, but not falling apart.
Since the meat was already cooked and only needed to be warmed, I added the chopped cheek in next to last and just let it simmer until it warmed through and the sauce thickened up, which only took about five minutes. Finally, scallions and cilantro added the fresh notes and the thick filling was done and tasting great. I had to let it chill in the fridge though before I could assemble it into empanadas.
Because I was going with a loose Argentinian theme here, I researched Argentinian empanada dough recipes and diverted from recipe I've been using for years. The main differences were that the butter gets melted in water before being introduced to the flour, and then the dough gets kneaded to develop more gluten than my other dough had—the empanada dough I've been making before this was more akin to a pastry dough.
That extra gluten is what I think made this dough easier to roll out thinner than I was used it. Before adding the filling, I cut circles with my largest biscuit cutter, and then was still able to roll the dough even thinner to make a larger circle that could hold more of the beef mixture.
This recipe ended up making three dozen empanadas, which gave me a lot of practice in assembly—I've been trying to get my hand crimping technique down. I find this method of pinching and folding the dough multiple times easier than crimping with the tines of the fork, but the ratio of "good" to "bad" looking ones tends to go in favor of the later, although this time around I think I started to finally get the hang of it.
I had made these empanada a few days after Carne-val, but they were going to be served until almost a month later at Meatabolic System, so I froze them all for later usage. On Meatwave day, I set the frozen empanadas on a parchment-lined baking sheet, gave them a brushing of an egg wash, and then baked them in a 400°F oven until golden brown.
When I tasted the filling during cooking, I knew these empanadas were going to be something special, but they were even more so than I even imagined. That filling was intense—it was strongly smoky, beef, spicy, earthy, and incredibly hearty. I almost thought it may have been a tad too much, but when encased in dough, there was something to balance out the intensity and make it taste even better. I served the empanadas with chimichurri, and while I marked that as optional in the recipe, I think that the freshness and strong acidity of that sauce really sealed the deal because it helped cut through the heaviness while adding flavors that paired well too. I had cooked up a sheet of these for my somewhat sparse crowd for the day and thought that was going to all I needed, but when the first batch went quickly, I baked a second, and those too disappeared, so I knew it was not just me who found these smoked beef empanadas something worth eating over and over again.
