Empanadas Times Two

The other day at Relief Society we had a cooking class with ideas on how to use the shortening/oil in your food storage. The main idea was to share pie recipes, but we also had a demonstration on how to make empanadas. Thanks Jennifer!
Empanadas

½ lb ground beef
1 onion chopped
1 clove garlic
1 tsp cumin
½ C milk
½ C shortening
4 C flour
½ tsp salt
green olives
hard-boiled egg
raisins

Brown ground beef. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is tender. Add cumin. Cool. Warm milk with shortening. When melted put in mixer and add flour a little at a time. Mix until dough pulls away from sides (3-5 min). Separate dough into roll sized balls. Keep covered with damp cloth. Roll each ball into 6-7 inch circle. [Jennifer rolled out a large ball of dough and then cut out the circles with a bowl.) Put 2-3 Tbsp filling on one half. Top with 1 olive, slice of hard-boiled egg and 4-5 raisins. Seal with water press firmly to form a rolled border. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Brush with egg wash and bake 20-25 minutes at 375° until golden brown. These tasted great, and I was thrilled to finally get this recipe, because Wayne's been raving about empanadas ever since we got married, and I have yet to find something that meets his expectations. (Although I'll admit I never tried really hard to do so.) When we were in Argentina, I even tried empanadas several times but didn't really like them, so figured they were an acquired taste. However, one afternoon when I was out and about, Brad decided to make us some. I got home in time to take a few pictures of the assembly process:
Roll the dough into a ball and pinch off a walnut-sized piece. Stretch and flatten that into a thin circle.Fill it with a spoonful of filling. (His contained ground beef, onions, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and salt. I don't know if there were additional spices. He also added a teaspoon of grated cheese to each empanada.)
Fold the dough around the filling, pinch it tightly shut, and then fold over the edges to make it look pretty.
Fry them in about a 1/2" of hot oil for just a minute on each side, drain on paper towels, and serve warm. Brad said they eat them with ketchup in Resistencia; we opted for salsa. And I decided the "magic" ingredient was frying them, even if baking is better for you. These were delicious!!

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