Italian panzarotti and calzone and their Sicilian cousin ’mpanatigghi, Jamaican patties, the Cornish pasty, Mallorcan panades to which you can add Indian samosas and gujias: just about every country in the world has its own form of a compact, handheld street food that is a spiced and seasoned savoury stuffing contained by a baked or fried pastry envelope.
In Argentina, and other Latin countries, they are called empanadas, a word which literally means “in bread,” given the verb empanar denoting something like “to bake in bread or pastry.”
That said, I’m not sure what marketing company makes such proclamations or why, but it turns out that April 8 is Empanada Day – the fact that I love empanadas is good enough reason for me.
A world of sweet and savoury pastry pockets
The origin of the empanada is uncertain, but in the world of food it is likely that similar versions of the simple foodstuff popped up across the globe at perhaps much the same time at one moment or another: the Moors stake a claim as do the Persians, as do the Mexicans.
Just one more example of the morsel’s ubiquity: if you break down the word, it’s easy to see the connection to the French word “pain” in the pana of empanada.
In fact, in France there’s a puff-pastry pocket, half moon-shaped, that is filled with beef stew, a creamy roux-based white sauce and perhaps bits of ham and cheese: the chausson (which also may have a sweet filling of apple). The rissole is another French pastry pocket filled with sweet or savoury ingredients in many regions of the country.
So, it seems, the world of food – and especially so-called street food – is a large family of cousins and distant relatives.
A proper empanada, however, is one that is constructed with a judicious balance of beef, chicken, or vegetable stuffing that is not overwhelmed by the dough – or by an unnecessarily heavy, dense dough.
The handheld can be stuffed with virtually anything making it very versatile; they also can come in different sizes: an empanada gallega is a pie-like dish large enough to feed a family, while the diminutive, empanaditas, are “little empanadas.”
The empanada maker prepares a pastry dough and rolls out a circular, thin disk of dough and then adds the filling before folding it in half into a pocket and closing it.
The edge of semi-circle is often trimmed and detailed artfully, the crimping often used to signify the type of filling inside the empanada.
A bit of travel to find authentic empanadas
Sadly, there are few places to enjoy empanadas in our region.
You can find them in boxed frozen form in grocery stores’ snack and appetizer freezer cases, but they don’t do the humble pastry much justice.
For now, some travel is required to find real empanadas.
West of Ottawa, in Carp, Ont., is the base for Delights by Mama where sisters-in-law Jessica Gutierrez (a Carleton University grad) and Ivana Hernandez (an Algonquin College grad) make a range of empanada flavours and stuffings that you can find at farmers’ markets in and around Ottawa.
The two specialize in the Argentine and Colombian versions of the empanada and also make aji sauce, a green sauce made with cilantro that is akin to chimichurri; they also make the Argentine confection alfajores, a pastry that often includes the delectable dulce de leche.
Gutierrez and Hernandez’s handheld handiwork, according to the pair, is made in the Argentine tradition of a bite to “tame your hunger” as you await a bit of beef from the huge chunk that is being slowly cooked over a smouldering “asado,” or open-pit barbecue.
Scaling operations may help our sourcing of empanadas
Good things come to those who wait – including when it comes to empanadas: Delights by Mama empanadas are, at the time of this writing, scheduled to be found at this season’s Navan and Orleans markets, 613flea (Aberdeen Pavilion in Lansdowne Park), Parkdale Night Market (Wednesdays), Urban Art Collective Market (Thursdays) and the Beechwood Market.
Delights by Mama will be at festivals in the area, and they pop up at the Canadian Tire Centre during Ottawa Senators games until April 17.
According to Gutierrez, the small mom-and-mom company is planning “to scale our operations” to include selling empanadas into a variety of shops in Ottawa and outlying areas, but the small pocket of street food deliciousness has even more ambitious plans, she hints, that we can look forward to.
“Our biggest project, which we’re very proud of, is our upcoming brick-and-mortar shop on Stittsville Main Street, and we hope it is set to open in summer 2025,” says Gutierrez. “This will be a production kitchen, which will allow us to provide regular deliveries to clients and offer a space for customers to purchase fresh empanadas.”
That’s great news for a small food operation that focusses on local ingredients – including preparing gluten-free, vegetarian and Halal foods – for a local consumer market. Let’s hope they can find a place for their empanadas in stores in our neighbourhoods.
Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.
