Heart of Palm, Cheese and Veggie Filled Yummy Brazilian Pastels/Empanadas

A pastel (plural: pastéis) is a typical Brazilian fast-food dish, consisting of half-circle or rectangle-shaped thin crust pies with assorted fillings, fried in vegetable oil. The result is a crispy, brownish fried pie. The most common fillings are meat, mozzaerlla, heart of palm, chicken, codfish, different cheeses and shrimp. The pastel is classified in Brazilian cuisine as a salgado (savoury snack). It is traditionally sold on the streets, in open-air marketplaces, or in fast-food shops known as pastelarias. It is popularly said to have originated when Chinese people adapted their traditional "spring rolls" to the Brazilian taste, by using local ingredients. The recipe was later popularized by Japanese immigrants that during World war II tried to pretend to be Chinese to escape from the prejudice Japanese people were facing because of the Japanese alliance during the war. Another theory was that Japanese immigrants adapted Chinese fried wontons to sell as snacks at weekly street markets. A common beverage to drink with pastéis is Caldo de cana  a sugarcane juice. We had these in Petropolis where they recently had devastating mudslides and flooding, this is  a town 100 miles from Rio, one of my husband's friend recommended that we must see this town when we visit Brazil and we are glad that we did...Of course I had to ask the server how they make this and they explained to me in Spanish, which I understand a little, and of course since I don't eat meat, chicken of fish, I had to adapt this with adding my choices of cheese and other veggies beside the heart of palm and cheese filling that we had it with over there.

I was told that the key ingredient to make this crispy is Cachaca which is a distilled spirit made from fermented sugar cane juice, and they told me that I can substitute this with white wine or vodka.  I am not sure where to find this Cachaca here in US and I always use white wine for cooking here, so I used that instead. 

When I asked them if this was different than Argentinian or Chilean Empanadas, I was told of course this is more delicious and much crispier.  While these are fried,  if you recall the Empanadas recipe I posted earlier on this blog were baked.  I decided to make these filled with Heart of palm, green onions, variety of peppers and cheeses. I did not have mushrooms in my fridge so I omitted that but I did include them as one of the ingredients. You can not go wrong with these ingredients.  You can simply make these filled with heart of palm and cheese filling.

Ingredients for Dough: 

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 and 1/8 tablespoon of salt (or to taste) 
• 3/4 to 1 cup warm water (add slowly when making the dough in mixer.)
  
• 4 tables spoon of vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoon of white wine vinegar ( I just had plain vinegar)
• 3 tablespoon of  wine or Cachaca or vodka
• Some extra flour to work the dough
• Vegetable oil for frying.
• 1 table spoon of corn starch 
• 1/3 cup of cold water to mix the corn starch, these last two ingredients are to make the paste and to put in around the rim of pastel so they seal well and don't open up while frying.
  

Ingredients for  creamy heart of palm and veggies filling:

• 2 table spoon of olive oil 
• 2 tablespoon of butter
• 1 yellow onion finely chopped
• 6 spring onions finely chopped with green
• 6 cloves of garlic finely chopped
• 1 long yellow/orange  sweet pepper finely chopped (you can use any)
  
• 1 long red sweet pepper finely chopped (you can use any)
• 1 small green pepper finely chopped
  
• 1 fresh Jalapeno finely chopped (optional)
• 6 snow white or portobello mushrooms finely chopped 
• One 14 ozs of Heart of Palm can, drained and  roughly chopped
  

•  1/4 cup chopped parsley or cilantro ( I used cilantro)
• 1 cup of evaporated milk
• 1/3 cup of all purpose flour
• Salt and Black coarsely ground pepper to taste
• 8 oz of cheddar cheese
• 8 oz of mozzarella cheese 
• 8 oz of Gouda cheese ( I used broken pieces of 8 slices  of Harvarti cheese) You can use any cheese your palate desires cubed or shredded.
  

Instructions to make the dough: 

• In electric mixer bowl combine flour and salt, mix with whisk.
• Add oil, white wine vinegar and vodka or white wine or Cachaca (if you can find it here) 
• Put the hook attachment to your electric mixer and gradually add warm water about 3/4 to  1 cup (not to exceed one cup) until dough is of elastic but workable consistency.
• Mix well on high speed until it receded the surface
  
• Cover the dough with plastic wrap and set aside , while you prepare the filling.
  

Instructions to make the filling: 

• Chop all the veggies but keep all the pepper together and onions and garlic together.
• Keep the chopped heart of palm separate.
  
• In a frying pan add olive oil and butter.  
• When heated add all the chopped onions and garlic, saute until translucent and light brown on medium high heat on stove. (for about 2-3 min)
  
• Add all the chopped peppers and chopped mushrooms.
  
• Saute for  2 more minutes on medium high heat on stove.
• Then add 1/3 cup of flour mix well until no lumps.
• Add 1 cup of evaporated milk and mix on low heat until thickens into creamy texture.
• Then add chopped heart of palm.
• Mix well, add salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat.
  

• Let the filling cool completely.
• Add  chopped cilantro or parsley and mix well.
  

How to assemble Pastels: 

• Kneed the dough on a surface
  
• Divide the dough in small equal size balls. (about 24 from this dough recipe) cover them with wet cloth so they don't dry up
  
• Divide the filling in to 24 equal parts with table spoon and get all the cheeses ready and clear the working station.
• Line a tray with layers of newspaper and last top layer with doubled paper towel. This is to put the fried pastel to drain all the oil.

 

• Mix the corn starch in a bowl with cold water until no lumps and take some extra flour in a bowl a set both of these  by your rolling surface and rolling pin.

• You can make all the pastel first and then fry them or if you can multi-task then can make a few and heat the oil in a frying pan on low heat and fry them as you can assemble the pastel.
  

• Now on the rolling surface take the ball of dough and roll it in flour first and then with rolling pin roll it to a thin round circle. 
• Place the cooled filling on each circle and cheeses. 
• With your finger tips smear the corn starch and water paste on periphery of circle. 
• Fold the circle into a semi circle and press the edges together shut the corn starch paste should help them glue together. 
• Using your fingers and fork fold the edges with  twisted pattern.
  

• Heat the oil in a deep sauce pan with oil enough to cover the pastel, on medium low heat on stove (or 350 degrees F if you are using electric fryer.
• Carefully drop each pastel in the heated oil, do not over crowd them in oil. 
• Fry them carefully turning them over every 2 min, until crisp and golden brown. 
• Transfer them on the tray layered with paper towel. 
• Serve hot with either chimi-churi, hot sauce or cilantro pesto  or  any sauce of your choice.
  

Enjoy !!

 Pastel info source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastel_(Brazilian_food)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License

Recipe and Photographs by Surekha.