12625 Makes 30 empanadas Wed Aug 06 07:38:29 -0700 2008 Tue Feb 03 12:31:14 -0800 2009 Licensed http://www.chow.com/recipes/12625 Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:31:14 GMT These little feather-light fried pies gently hold rich, buttery lobster and subtle roasted poblano chiles in a sauce that is indescribably beautiful. This is a good way to stretch a single lobster into thirty little pies. Poblanos are deep green, spade-shaped chiles with lots of flavor and very little heat to them. They are typically stocked in the produce department near other varieties of peppers and chiles. When selecting a fresh lobster, ask for a female because you will want to use the roe sac to flavor the sauce and lend it a rosy hue. Females have a broader lower abdomen and a shorter, wider fan to their tail. (If a female is not available, a male will do, but there will be no roe sac.) The stock cooks very quickly, so all of the vegetables should be chopped finely enough for their flavors to come out in that short time. These empanadas taste excellent fried but are also good baked. Either way, they are best cooked to order, so cook only as many as you plan to serve at one time. The uncooked empanadas keep well in the freezer for weeks if properly sealed. This is a rather long and somewhat complicated recipe, but yields an extraordinary result.

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To Steam the Lobster: Place a steamer basket inside a 12-quart stockpot with 1 cup water, the vinegar, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil and then turn down to simmer for 5 minutes, covered. Place the lobster on the steamer basket inside the pot and cover. Cook for 13 minutes, until the lobster is bright red. Remove the lobster and let it cool intact. It will not be cooked all the way at this point.

To Dismantle the Lobster: Pull the par-cooked lobster apart over a large, wide bowl. Catch all the juice in the bowl to use for the stock, keep the heads but discard the empty shells—they have no flavor to lend to the stock. Save all of the lobster meat in separate bowl as you go.

Separate the upper torso from the lower torso by twisting it apart.

1. Twist off the tail and bend it back to crack it and then pull it apart from the other direction.

1. Squeeze the shell surrounding the tail meat to crack the shell.

1. Pull it apart and extract the meat.

1. Break off the claws and arms where they attach to the body. Wrap the pincher claws in a soft cloth and whack them with the flat side of a cleaver to crack them open.

1. Extract the meat from the arms and claws. The claw meat has rigid white cartilage in it that should be separated out and discarded.

1. Pull the shell off of the body.

1. Find the soft pale green tomalley (liver) in the abdomen.

1. Just above it rests the roe sac. It is emerald green when raw and bright red when cooked. It may show signs of either or both colors at this point. Put the roe sac in a small dish and cover it with ½ cup of wine to keep it from drying out.

1. Cover and refrigerate the lobster meat that you have extracted for the filling. Take the exposed lobster torso, the pale green tomalley, the skinny legs, and the juice and transfer it to a medium-sized stockpot. Use the blunt, short end of a cleaver or a meat mallet to smash up the parts in the stock pot. (It's fine to include these last fragments of shell in the stock, since the remaining meat is difficult to extract.)
2. Add the carrots, wine, tomato, onion, oil, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, tarragon, parsley, salt, fennel, cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves, and saffron. The liquid will not cover the ingredients completely. Heat the stock over medium-low heat. Keep watch for bubbles near the edge and steam in the center. At the first sign of them, turn the stock down to very low and simmer it for 15 minutes more. Using a ladle, skim off any scum as it surfaces. Strain and cool.
3. Over very low heat in a small saucepan, cook the roe sac and the wine it has been soaking in with ½ cup water. Give it a little shake but be careful to keep the roe sac intact. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until the roe sac turns bright red all the way through and gets nice and firm. Strain the cooking liquid into the stock and dry the roe on a paper towel to get the excess liquid off of it. It will feel like a hard lump. Prior to this point, the roe must stay moist; now, the aim is to keep it dry. Take a big spoon and a dry sieve—not too fine—and line a wide soup bowl with paper towels. Break open the roe and coax the jewel-like, brilliant orange-red roe through the sieve with the back edge of a spoon, distributing it evenly as it falls to prevent it from clumping together. Add another layer of paper towels on top of the roe, wrap the bowl in plastic wrap, and refrigerate. Tap any roe bits remaining in the sieve into the stock juices.
4. Strain the stock through the same sieve over a saucepan. Press down on the solids in the sieve to release any extra juice. You should have about 2 cups of stock. Reduce the stock down to 1 cup over medium-high heat, to concentrate the flavor.
5. Roast the Chile: Hold the chile with metal tongs over a gas fire, turning it as it sputters, crackles, and becomes evenly blistered and blackened. (If you don't have a gas stove, you can put it in a pan under the broiler in the oven or a toaster oven. Turn the chile a quarter turn each time its surface becomes evenly blistered and blackened.) It will smell great. Drop it into a small paper bag and seal it up to steam it for a few minutes. Peel under cold running water. Remove and discard the seeds, stems, and veins. Dice the pepper.
6. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the onions and garlic. Sauté until they are translucent and then add the tomatoes. Add the flour and stir vigorously to break up the lumps, making a roux. Sauté the roux about 3 minutes, until it is pretty thick, in order to bind the filling. Whisk the stock into the roux and combine evenly. Simmer about 10 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the sauce is visibly thickened. Remove from the heat. Take out the lobster meat and chop it coarsely; combine it with the diced poblanos, salt, and cayenne. Add the thickened sauce to the lobster and poblanos and adjust the seasoning to taste. The filling can be made to this point and refrigerated, covered, until you are ready to assemble the empanadas.
7. Make the dough according to the Lard Pastry Pie Dough instructions (page 28), using the quantities in the recipe above. For this quantity of dough, the food processor method is recommended. Divide the dough into 30 golf ball–sized lumps. If you are working in a warm kitchen, chill most of the dough and take out only a few balls at a time. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each round until it is about the size of a tea saucer and about 1/16-inch thick. Stack up the rounds between parchment, and chill them, covered, for about 10 minutes.
8. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and 2 tablespoons water to make an egg wash. Assemble only 3 or 4 empanadas at a time or they will dry out. Spoon 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of each round. Wet the edges with egg wash and fold the circle in half, stretching gently over the filling. Crimp to seal the edges with a lightly floured fork. Repeat with the remaining dough rounds and filling, then freeze the empanadas on a cookie sheet for at least 1 hour.
9. When the empanadas are fully frozen, they can be fried or baked. Uncooked empanadas will keep in a tightly sealed container or freezer bag in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
10. To Bake: Heat the oven to 425°F.
11. Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal and put the empanadas on it, with at least 1 inch of space between each one. Brush the top of each empanada with egg wash. Bake them for about 10 minutes, or until they show the first signs of browning. Then turn the oven down to 350°F and bake them for 10 to 13 minutes more, until the crust is golden brown. Serve warm.
12. To Fry: Fill a large cast-iron skillet with canola oil until it is 1½ inches deep and clip a deep-frying thermometer to the side.
13. Monitor the heat of the oil and adjust the burner setting to keep the oil between 360° and 375°F. Wait until you hit the high end—375°F—before adding the empanadas, as they are cold and will cause the oil temperature to drop. Fry a couple of empanadas at a time, leaving a lot of space around them—don't overcrowd them. Cook them for a few minutes, until the first side is completely golden brown. Turn the empanadas and fry them for a few minutes more, until the second side is completely golden brown. Layer some paper towels on a plate. When the empanadas are fully fried, cool and drain them on the toweling. Hold them in a warm oven (225°F) until you have finished frying all the empanadas you intend to serve. Serve warm. I will confess to what I know without constraint: if ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more. —William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

]]> http://www.chow.com Ron Silver and Jen Bervin 50 Main ¼ cup white vinegar

]]> 1 tablespoon salt

]]> Pinch ground cloves

]]> Pinch ground cinnamon

]]> 6 black peppercorns

]]> One 2½- to 3-pound female lobster

]]> ½ cup of white wine

]]> ½ cup water

]]> 1 whole bay leaf

]]> 1 sprig fresh tarragon (or ½ teaspoon dried)

]]> 1 sprig fresh parsley

]]> ½ teaspoon salt

]]> ½ teaspoon fennel seeds

]]> ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

]]> 3 black peppercorns

]]> Pinch ground cloves

]]> Pinch saffron (6 or 7 strands)

]]> 1 fresh poblano chile

]]> 4 tablespoons unsalted butter

]]> ½ cup minced onion

]]> 1 lobster body

]]> 2 small carrots, peeled and finely diced

]]> 1 cup white wine

]]> ½ large tomato, finely diced

]]> 3 tablespoons finely diced yellow onion

]]> 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

]]> 1 clove garlic, smashed

]]> 2 sprigs fresh thyme

]]> 2 cloves garlic, minced

]]> ⅓ cup rough-chopped fresh tomato

]]> ¼ cup all-purpose flour

]]> 1 teaspoon salt

]]> Cayenne, as needed

]]> 4 cups all-purpose flour

]]> 1⅓ cups lard

]]> 1¼ teaspoon salt

]]> 1 large egg

]]> 2 tablespoons of water

]]> Cornmeal, for baking

]]> Canola oil, for frying

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