Salteñas

Ingredients

• Flour600 g
• Butter150 g
• Sugar3 tbsp
• Achiote or paprika2 tsp
• Beef — finely diced500 g
• Potatoes — diced, boiled300 g
• Green peas150 g
• Onion3
• Gelatine20 g
• Beef stock500 ml
• Ají or hot paprika2 tsp
• Ground cumin1 tsp
• Eggs — boiled, in wedges3
• Olives12
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Fry the onion with the ají and cumin, add the beef and cook through. Pour in the stock and simmer ten minutes.

   25 min

2. 2

   Dissolve the gelatine in a couple of spoons of hot water and stir it into the stew with the potato and peas.

   6 min

3. 3

   Cool the filling and refrigerate it for at least four hours; it has to set to a firm jelly.

   15 min

4. 4

   Knead a dough from the flour, softened butter, sugar, achiote, salt and warm water. Rest it half an hour.

   40 min

5. 5

   Roll fifteen-centimetre rounds. On each go a spoon of the cold jelly, a wedge of egg and an olive.

   20 min

6. 6

   Seal the seam in a plait along the top and stand the pastries seam-up. Any gap means the broth escapes.

   20 min

7. 7

   Bake at 220 °C for twenty-five minutes. The high heat is what sets the pastry before the jelly melts.

   27 min

About the dish

The trick is gelatine: the hot stew is set with it, chilled to a jelly, and wrapped in the pastry in that state. In the oven the jelly melts back into broth inside a sealed pastry.

Hence the way they are eaten: a salteña is held upright, a corner is bitten off and the broth drunk first, and only then the rest. Otherwise it ends up on your shirt.

The dough is coloured with achiote and lightly sweetened — it has to be firm enough to hold liquid and sweet enough to answer the spicy filling.

Worth knowing

• — Work with cold filling in batches of three or four. Left on the counter it slackens and shaping becomes impossible.
• — Line the tray with parchment: escaped broth caramelises and welds the pastry to the metal.
• — Salteñas are eaten before noon. In La Paz you will not find one by lunchtime — that is a rule, not a saying.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

560 kcal

Protein

24 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

58 g

More from Bolivia

• Silpancho — A plate-sized breaded steak over rice and potatoes, topped with a fried egg and raw salsa.