Stephanie's Kitchen Drawer: Pressure Cooker Part 3

Have you heard about the latest in electric pressure cookers?  It's called the Instant Pot.   I left my pressure cooker in NYC with a friend since I had cooked chili in it for our very last Astoria Ward Halloween Party and Chili Cook-off.   We were moving and I had my friend Nellie hold onto the pressure cooker with the chili in it and bring it to church and told her to keep the pressure cooker after the activity.  Anyway point is I gave up my pressure cooker and have cooked without it for a little over a year.  Recently Amazon was celebrating receiving some award for excellence by giving every a discount of a little over $8 so I decided to take the plunge into the Instant Pot universe and buy one. I bought this particular instant pot.  This particular pressure cooker has over 16,000 reviews and averages 4 1/2 stars and is a Amazon #1 Best Seller so I figured all those reviews are very very good sign.  Today I'm using it for the first time to cook pork tenderloin.  We have a weekly food menu that calls for pork on Thursday's for dinner.  Pork tenderloin is one of the most versatile, inexpensive, and tender cuts of meat you can find.  I'll let you know what I think of it after I've tried it out on a few recipes.  

Beef & Black Bean Empañadas (with a little tamale flare)

What do I mean by an empañada with a tamale flare?  I changed the recipe and included Maseka so it tastes like a tamale but has the look and portability of an empañada (as in you can pick it up and it won't crumble between your fingertips or require a fork and knife to eat).  I enjoy making and eating Mexican food.  Of course, I'm fairly certain my gringo heritage and my lack of a Mexican grandmother, as I pointed out before, means my knowledge is limited as to what authentic Mexican food is truly like. Forgive me as I share with you a recipe I came up with on my own that has a Mexican flare to it.

If an empañada and a tamale got together.

Ingredients for this recipe are: 140 grams of all purpose flour, 140 grams of Maseca flour
(total of about 2 1/4 cups), 1 egg, 1 stick frozen butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 cup ice water,
and 1 tablespoon vinegar (I tripled the recipe since I was bringing this to a potluck at church).

For the filling I used leftover chili.  Did you make the chili I posted about here? I drained it in a large sieve over a large bowl, I needed a less wet filling.

Preheat oven to 375 Farenheit

 Add all ingredients to a bowl.  Using your fingers break apart the butter into pea size pieces,
then use the pastry blender to finish incorporating all the butter throughout the flour.

My massive ball of empañada (with a tamale flare) dough goodness.

 Put out a large sheet of parchment paper on work surface.   Dust with flour and roll out dough
to a large rectangle about 1/8 inch thick.

 Cut dough using a 4 inch round cookie cutter.  Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the middle.
Fold over, press edges and crimp if you would like or use a fork.

 My husband kindly photographed my impressive empañada skills.

 Look at those beauties?  Brush with egg wash (1 egg yolk, and 1 tablespoon water mixed). 

Bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for 10 minutes, maybe more.
 Check your food after 10.

I love how they turned out.

By the way, I had to test one before we went to our church potluck, and yes it tasted like a tamale
 but so much more portable.  I have memories of eating tamales my mom bought from a local
Mexican store and topped with canned chili.  Don't mock me, it was really good.
This is for you mom.  Thanks for the idea.

Enjoy!