Memories of Spain and little Spanish morsels

This blog post was written for Flavours of Spain, an Australian website which explores all things Spanish.

Thinking of food in Spain conjures up memories of tapas, cold drinks to quench my thirst from spending hours sightseeing and shopping in the Spanish sun, jamon (Spanish ham) hanging in store windows and exciting food markets. On my last trip to Spain, my hubby and I spent hours tasting delightful traditional tapas which we’d find in a little tapas bar near our hostel or a modern, slick restaurant near La Rambla in Barcelona. I also vividly remember the delicious rotisserie chicken eaten on the balcony of the accommodation we stayed in Tossa de Mar.

I would love to go back to Spain and spend a month or so sampling the diverse range that is Spanish cuisine: from north to south to east to west… A girl can always dream :)

Thankfully, as consumer palates have evolved, I’m happy to report that back home here in Auckland, there are some great places to enjoy the real flavours of Spain as well as purchase some of their delicious produce.

I was quite flattered to receive an invitation from Flavours of Spain to write a guest blog post and I wanted to choose a recipe that featured olives nicely. Maria and Angela from Sabato in Auckland were kind enough to walk me through their selection and share some of their recipes with me. This recipe of Olive and Chorizo Empanadas is theirs and despite sounding a bit intimidating, it's very quick and easy to make.

The olives from Spain that I chose, were stuffed with chorizo, which I thought would complement the dish nicely.

Simply put, this recipe just calls for you to cook up some chorizo, chop it up along with some olives, pimientos and put it into some rolled out pastry.

I have some serious holes in my kitchen equipment list - a decent range of cookie and pastry cutters included. I don't have an 8cm cutter that this recipe calls for, so I went old skool and flattened it out by hand. They didn't turn out perfectly round, but I had fun rolling little balls of pastry, flattening them with my palm then coercing them out into thin circles on my floured bench.

Olive and chorizo empanadas

Based on Sabato's recipe
Makes approx 20

Ingredients

120g chorizo, dry fried and finely chopped
20 stuffed olives (I used chorizo-stuffed olives from Spain), finely chopped
2 Tbsp roasted, bottled pimiento (or roasted capsicum), finely chopped
400g savoury shortcrust pastry
1 egg, beaten

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 250ºC
2. In a bowl, mix the chorizo, olives and pimientos together
3. Roll out the pastry to about 2mm thick and cut into 8cm rounds. Or as I did, pinch off large marble sized lumps (about 20g), roll into a ball, then flatten with your hand or rolling pin into a circular shape
4. Place 1-2 tsp of the mixture into the middle of each pastry circle. Fold the pastry in half, pressing down firmly around the filling
5. Fold and crimp the edges of the empanadas and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes
6. Place the chilled empanadas on a lightly greased baking tray and brush with the beated egg
7. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve immediately with your favourite tomato chutney - preferably one that contains paprika.

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