Super Bowl Snack

Empanadas or pastelitos as they are referred to in my husband's culture have become a hot, new food trend.  Savory, flaky bundles of deliciousness!

Traditionally they are filled with meat, chicken or cheese. Somewhere along the road someone figured anything stuffed into these pastry shells had to be good.

We were invited to a Superbowl party and I started thinking about what to bring. Chili, wings, pizza, dips, been there done all of that. So I thought empanada. Recently a friend of mine was describing to me a "nice" sandwich he had eaten...turkey pastrami with swiss and sauerkraut. Got me thinking, this could be good! So I decided on the modified Reuben empanada.

I started with the 3 packages of Goya empanada disks which you can find it the frozen section of the supermarket, 3/4 of a pound of turkey pastrami, 1 block of Swiss cut in to 30 slices and a can of sauerkraut (which I left in a strainer for a few hours to release all of the moisture).  Once the disks were defrosted I lined them up on the counter and filled them with a slice of pastrami, a slice of cheese and a spoonful of sauerkraut. 

While stuffing all of the empanadas, I filled the fryer with vegetable oil to get it nice and hot. My fryer is a decent size so I can fit about 5 empanadas in at a time. They fry from 8-10 minutes until they are golden brown and crispy.

 I served them with spicy brown mustard. They were a hit!

next empanada filling? Nutella & Peanut butter!