There are many recipes for Galician-style tuna empanadas out there. Many of them produce thick, rather heavy pies with lots of filling and a bready crust.
This recipe is for the more delicate, thinner type of empanada found in the towns of Santiago de Compostela and Orense. The crust is an olive oil pastry. After years of experimenting, I found the recipe for this pastry in Richard Olney's classic Simple French Food.
This crust is flaky, crisp, crunchy at the edges--not at all bready. In my opinion, it makes a much better tapa.
The filling is mainly good olive oil tinted with saffron, a little sauted onion, roasted pimiento, and bits of tuna. Variations include eel, cockles, or pimenton-spiced pork, but the following recipe is for the tuna, which is the easiest (and my favorite).
This recipe explains how to bake the empanada in an ordinary oven, but I usually cook empanadas now in a kamado oven (Big Green Egg) because the the crust comes out even better. Please see my post Baking Empanadas in a Kamado Oven (Big Green Egg) for more information.
Ingredients
For the crust :
2 cups of all purpose flour
¼ cup of fruity olive oil
¼ cup of water
1 large egg
½ teaspoon salt
For the Filling:
1/3 cup of fruity olive oil (or more)
1 large yellow onion, or 2 small ones, chopped
1 large, mild red pepper, roasted, peeled, and sliced. See my post on Flame roasted pepper salad for more information on how to roast peppers. Or substitute a good brand of fire-roasted pimientos sold in jars. La Tienda sells high-quality piquillo peppers.
1 5-ounce can of tuna fillet packed in olive oil
a pinch of saffron, ground in the mortar with a little salt, and soaked in a teaspoon of warm water for 10 minutes
Mix the above ingredients with a fork.
Knead the dough until it forms a ball. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for at least one hour.
Saute the onion in the olive oil until translucent, but not brown. Add the peppers, the saffron, and the tuna, and stir, breaking up the tuna. Remove the pan from heat and set aside.
For the assembly:
Rub a large sheet pan with olive oil. You’ll want to choose a pan with edges, not a flat one, or else the oil will run into your oven and make a lot of smoke. Divide the dough in two. Shape two dough balls of equal size/weight. On a clean work surface, roll out each dough ball into the desired shape and size. A14-inch circle is the standard shape, but if you need to make the empanada oval shaped to fit your baking sheet, that’s fine. You can roll the dough out a little larger than the pan, as you’ll be folding up the edges to seal the empanada.
Spread the filling out evenly, nearly to the edges of the dough.
Place the other piece of dough on top. Roll the edges together with your fingers, and press them with a fork to make a seal. With a sharp knife, cut vents in the top, as you would on a pie. Rub the empanada down with more olive oil.
Bake from 12-15 minutes in a very hot oven—500+ degrees—or until empanada turns golden. Slide it onto a cooling rack. Slice into triangles, as you would a pizza, and serve at room temperature, as a tapa, a pincho or a picar--a canapé.