Tuna “empanada” Andalusian style

This is my recipe for emergencies. It is ready in a second and it uses only ingredients that I always keep in my cupboards such as tuna, tomato sauce, potatoes, onions. The empanada is a recipe of Galician origin, but I have learnt making it in Andalusia, so ingredients are a bit different from the original.

Tuna empanada

20 min. preparation | 30 min. baking time

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 2 puff pastry
  • 4 cans of tuna
  • 1 medium-sized potato, boiled
  • 300gr tomato sauce
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 green pepper
  • 1 handful of frozen peas (optional)
  • extra virgin olive oil

Cooking instructions

  1. Boil the potato, peel it and cut it to cubes.
  2. Dice the green pepper.
  3. Dice the onion.
  4. Drain the tuna from the oil of its can.
  5. In a large pan fry the pepper and onion in 2 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add the tomato sauce, the peas (if you are adding them) and the tuna to the frying pan, season to taste and cook for 10 minutes. You won’t need too much salt, since canned tuna tends to be pretty salty already.
  6. Once the 10 minutes have passed, allow your cooked tuna mixture to cool for a few minutes. If you like your empanada filling to be quite firm, drain some juice out of it by running the whole thing through a colander.
  7. Line a baking tray with baking paper, unroll a roll of puff pastry onto it and pour the tuna mixture in.
  8. Lay another sheet of puff pastry on top, sealing the sides of the two pastry sheets together to keep the filling in.
  9. Make a hole at the center of the top sheet for the steam to get out as the empanada bakes.
  10. Pop the empanada in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

TIP: You can brush the pastry with a beaten egg yolk and bake it for a further 5 minutes if you like your empanada to have a golden, glowy finish.

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Filed under Dairy free recipes, Pescatarian

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