Roasted carrot soup..empanadillas

On the days I catch the bus to the Barrio del Carmen for English lessons I always tuck an empanadilla in my bag so I don't have to spend anything on a snack.  In my first week here I made empanadillas four times-the first two to rescue dishes that turned out differently than planned, the third for a party and the fourth to use up all the extra dough.  Tonight I had one from batch two, and the defrosted result was a good lesson in what to do differently next time.

My first round turned out with a high dough to filling ratio--too high. I swung the other way on the second, and the resulting empanadas were tasty out of the oven, but now start to fall apart once re-heated.  The key to a really good hand pie is to be able to eat it out of just one hand, without any need for catching crumbly crust or meagerly supported filling with the other.

These empanadillas started out as a roasted carrot soup.  I was finally able to roast with confidence again (my oven in Sicily had just two temperatures-singeing, and off), but after blending everything together I realized that the favorite bouillon cube brand in Spain is much saltier than the popular one in Italy

With that

Made this..

I, like my mother, have a very high saltiness threshold, but the only way I could get through a whole bowl of this was adding in spoon after spoon of plain yogurt.  Since yogurt is also what I had bought to eat every morning, I did not have yogurt to spare.  I did, however, have half a potato leftover from another recipe, so I went two for one and mashed it up to both thicken the soup into a viable filling and rachet down the sodium simultaneously.

Roasted carrot empanadillas

Ingredients

For the filling
A bunch of carrots
Olive oil
Salt
Half an onion, diced
A head of garlic
1/2 of 1 bouillon cube
Mache, spinach or arugula
Half of a potato

For the dough
1/2 cup of warm water
1/2 cup of olive oil
Salt
Flour
1 egg, beaten

-Preheat the oven to 415 degrees
-Cut the carrots in half lengthwise down the middle (if large, cut each half lengthwise again)
-Toss the carrots in olive oil (no need to use extra virgin-my friend in León says no one here wastes it on roasting, or empanadilla dough, since the heat diminishes the flavor) and sprinkle with just a little salt
-Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with tin foil and cover the whole sheet tightly with another piece of foil
-Cut the top off of the head of garlic to reveal the cloves, place on a square of tin foil and and drizzle with olive oil
-Fold up the tin foil so it covers the garlic completely and put it in the oven along with the carrots
-Roast the carrots for about 15 minutes, then take off the top layer of tin foil and continue roasting, turning the carrots around a few times, for another 25 minutes or so, until they are very tender and nicely browned
-Continue to roast the garlic for another 15 minutes, then remove from the foil and set aside
-Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a pot but don't let it smoke
-Crumble the bouillon cube into the oil and stir for about 30 seconds (start with just half-you can always add more)
-Add in the onion and cook until transluscent
-Roughly chop the roasted carrots, add to the pot, and cook for a few minutes
-Use a butter knife to scrape half of the roasted garlic cloves out of their peels, setting aside the rest of the cloves for another dish, or adding them into the pot if you like very strong roasted garlic flavor
-Add in water to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil
-Transfer the soup to a regular blender or use an immersion blender to bring everything together, stopping before the ingredients become completely pureed so there are still some pieces of carrot in the mix
-Add in the greens and stir until wilted
-Eat a bowl of soup, adding a little plain yogurt on top
-Reserve the rest of the soup and refrigerate, cooling completely
-Peel the potato, use a fork to make several pricks, then cook in the microwave until a paring knife can pierce easily into the center
-Mash the potato, leaving some small to medium size pieces intact
-Mix into the soup

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
-In a medium size bowl, add the water, olive oil and a few pinches of salt
-Add flour, a generous 1/2 cup at a time, and stir with a fork until the dough comes together and is no longer sticky
-Roll out the dough to the thickness of a Christmas cookie (imagine cookies that you could ice generously and top with lots of sprinkles and Red Hots without fear of them breaking mid-way through decoration)
-Using a biscuit cutter, Tupperware with a circular top or a bowl, cut out pieces of dough in any size you like (I usually make a few different sizes so I have empanadillas that are good for a meal and for a snack)
-Mix just a bit of the beaten egg into the soup and potato mixture to bind it all together and use a spoon to put filling on top of each cut out of dough
-The amount of filling will vary depending on the size of the cut outs, but use enough so that you can fold the dough over and press the edges together with just enough room to seal with the tines of a fork
(If you can see the filling at all through the dough, it's too thin)
-As you finish sealing each empanadilla, place it on a tin foil lined baking sheet
-Add just a little water to the remaining egg and brush the empanadillas with the egg wash, making sure to brush the top, sides, and pressed edges
-Bake the empanadillas at 350 degrees, rotating the baking sheet a few times, for 20-30 minutes until they are golden brown