Empanadas Salteñas with Hand-Cut Beef

Name: Empanadas Salteñas with Hand-Cut Beef
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 285 min
Yield: 12 servings
Cuisine: Argentine
Ingredients: 1 kg lean beef (roasting beef, shoulder or top blade), cut by hand into cubes; 200 g beef suet (grasa de pella) — the essential source of fat; 500 g white onions, finely chopped; 1 small red pepper, finely chopped; 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 5 mm dice; 1 bunch of scallions (spring onions), green part only, finely chopped; 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; 2 tbsp sweet paprika (from Cachi, ideally); 1 tsp ground cumin (sparingly, or it turns bitter); 250 ml concentrated beef stock (1 cup); 36 empanada pastry discs (the baking kind); Fine salt and a pinch of chilli flakes, to taste

⏱ 4 h 45 min in total🔪 15 min prep🍳 30 min cooking🧊 4 h resting🍽 12 portiesMedium

The most famous empanadas in Argentina, in the version that makes the difference: the beef is cut with a knife, not minced. Minced meat gives up its juice and goes dry; hand-cut cubes keep it, and give the filling Salta is known for.

The second indispensable step is the night in the fridge. The filling is chilled half-cooked so the fat and the collagen set — which is what makes it possible to spoon into the pastry at all, and in the oven it turns liquid again. That is why these empanadas are juicy inside and not crumbly.

The other version in the catalogue is the empanadas salteñas with potato; the historic rival of both are the empanadas tucumanas.

🔎 What is beef suet? — where it comes from, what goes in it and how it differs.

Ingredients

Measurements

🍽 12 servings

1 kg lean beef (roasting beef, shoulder or top blade), cut by hand into cubes
200 g beef suet (grasa de pella) — the essential source of fat
500 g white onions, finely chopped
1 small red pepper, finely chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 5 mm dice
1 bunch of scallions (spring onions), green part only, finely chopped
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2 tbsp sweet paprika (from Cachi, ideally)
1 tsp ground cumin (sparingly, or it turns bitter)
250 ml concentrated beef stock (1 cup)
36 empanada pastry discs (the baking kind)
Fine salt and a pinch of chilli flakes, to taste

Method

1
Blanching the potatoes: cook the diced potato in boiling salted water for only 4 to 5 minutes. They must stay firm, al dente, not turn to purée. Drain them, refresh under cold water to stop the cooking and set aside.
2
The base: in a wide pan, melt the beef suet over medium heat. Add the white onion and the red pepper. Soften for 8 minutes, until the onion is completely translucent and tender, without letting it colour.
3
Cooking the meat and spices: stir the paprika, the cumin and the chilli flakes into the hot fat so they release their aroma. Immediately after, add the hand-cut beef and the hot stock. Cook over medium-high heat for only 5 to 7 minutes, just long enough for the meat to change colour outside while staying half-raw inside. Turn off the heat.
4
Chilling and setting (the key step): stir the blanched potatoes into the hot pan. Tip the filling into a wide dish, let it come to room temperature and scatter the green part of the scallions and the chopped hard-boiled egg over the top. Put the dish in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours, ideally overnight, so the fat and the collagen solidify.
5
Filling and crimping: take a disc of pastry and put a generous spoonful of the cold filling in the centre. Dampen the edge lightly with water, close the disc pressing firmly to push out the air, and make the traditional Salta crimp — fine and many-folded, typically between 16 and 19 pleats.
6
Baking in a heat shock: heat the oven to its absolute maximum (250-300 °C if your oven goes there). Set the empanadas on a barely greased tray and bake for 5 to 8 minutes, until the pastry is cooked and the edges show the classic dark blisters. Serve immediately — and bite carefully, the juice inside is very hot.