Hearts of palm empadinhas and Limeade with raspberries

I loved this Blog Party theme, hosted by The Happy Sorcerer: picnic food!!! Yay!!!

My parents, my brother and I used to have great picnics when I was a kid. We spent great days in a park in São Paulo. My brother and I would play and run around and after all that “work out” we’d have the wonderful snacks prepared by my mom. That was great!

To take part I decided to make a very Brazilian recipe: empadinhas. These are my first empadinhas so I still need to get the hang of it – some of them almost opened up while in the oven.
Besides that, they are wonderful – the crust is flaky without being too crumbly and the filling completes it perfectly.

I got the dough recipe from a very talented Brazilian foodie and the filling was adapted from a Brazilian website.

Step-by-step photos by João.

Hearts of palm empadinhas

Dough:
450g (3 ¼ cups) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
120g unsalted butter, cold and diced
100g shortening, cold and diced
1 large egg, lightly beaten
70ml ice water

Filling:
4 tablespoons vegetable oil – canola would be great 2 medium onions, chopped2 tomatoes, seeds removed, finely diced580g (4 cups) hears of palm, finely chopped60g (½ cup) olives, chopped4 tablespoons cornstarch 240ml (1 cup) milk salt

Egg wash:
1 egg yolk – I wasn’t paying attention and used the whole egg :S
1 tablespoon water

Place the flour, salt, butter and shortening in a food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and water and process until a soft and smooth dough forms. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Since my food processor is tiny, I made the dough by hand: place the flour, salt, butter and shortening in a bowl and rub with the tip of your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and water, mix well and knead until a soft and smooth dough forms. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

For the filling: in a large pan over high heat, heat the oil and add the onions. Cook until golden. Add the hearts of palm, tomatoes and olives and cook for 8-10 minutes.
In a cup, place the cornstarch and milk and mix well using a fork. Add this mixture to the hearts of palm and stir constantly until creamy. Season to taste, remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/355 ºF.
Grab a small amount of dough and flatten it. Place it inside an empadinha pan - or use a muffin pan - and line the bottom and the sides with the dough. Repeat the process with other pans.

Place tablespoons of filling inside the prepared pans.

Roll portions of dough and cut circles. Place the circles on top of empadinhas and seal well.
Brush with the egg wash and bake for 30 minutes or until golden – in the last 5 minutes I raised the oven temperature to 200ºC.

Remove from the oven and set aside it cool for 5 minutes. Unmold the empadinhas and serve.

Makes about 45 empadinhas, about 5cm each

Limeade with raspberries

1 large lime
200ml water
1 ½ tablespoons frozen raspberries
sugar
ice

Squeeze the lime, add the water and sugar to taste. Pour in a nice glass and add the raspberries and ice.
Serve immediately.

Makes 1 glass.