Empanada

A traveling pastry

The empanada’s lineage traces back to medieval Galicia and northern Portugal — the word comes from the Spanish empanar, “to wrap in bread.” Spanish colonizers carried the form to the Americas and the Philippines, where each region built it around local ingredients.

Regional shapes

• Argentine empanadas — crimped half-moons, baked, typically beef-filled with onion, hard-boiled egg, and olives. Each province has its own version.
• Chilean empanadas (de pino) — larger, with ground beef, onion, raisin, and a wedge of egg.
• Colombian empanadas — corn-dough shells, deep-fried, with potato-and-meat fillings, served with ají hot sauce.
• Filipino empanada — sweet-tinged dough; northern (Ilocos) versions include longganisa sausage and a whole egg yolk.
• Salteñas (Bolivian) — soupy filling sealed inside, eaten standing up to manage the juice.

Sweet versions

Dessert empanadas exist too, filled with quince paste, dulce de leche, sweet potato (camote), or guava and cheese.