Easy Brazilian Recipes
www.EasyBrazilianFood.com
Pastel Dough: All Purpose Flour, Egg yolk, Butter, Water, Salt Filling & Frying: Ground Beef, Olive Oil, Garlic, Scallions, Chili Powder, Cumin Powder, Salt, Ground black pepper, Oil for frying (I used Soybean Oil)
Add the salt to the water. Sift flour into a bowl. Make a well in center; add egg yolk and butter. Combine flour, egg yolk, butter. Add the salted water. Mix until it starts to pull away from the sides and stick together. Using hands, knead the pastry, until it's elastic, about 4-5 minutes. Let stand for 1 hour, covered with a cloth or plastic wrap.
Mince the garlic. Slice scallions. Preheat pan on high heat. Add Olive Oil, then the ground beef. Break up the beef. Add the garlic, scallions, chili powder, cumin, salt, black pepper. Transfer the filling to a bowl and let it cool in the fridge.
Cut dough into 4 sections. Start with one section of the dough and flatten it with your hands so that you can fit it into the pasta roller. Flour both sides of the dough. Start with the thickest setting working your way to the thinnest setting.
Cut into large squares that are between 5-6 inches x 5-6 inches. This should be about the width of the sheet of dough, so that you are simply cutting 5-6 inch sections along the length of the sheet. I can usually get 4-5 squares per sheet (4 sheets = total of 16-20 pasteis).
Add a heaping tablespoon or so of the beef filling just to the left of the center of each square. Using your fingers, moisten the edges of three left edges of dough with water. Carefully fold over the right side keeping the filling inside away from the edge so that you get dough on dough to seal. Push down to seal with fingers.
Then use fork tines dipped into the cold water to crimp around the edge.
Heat a large, deep pot of vegetable oil to 360 F to 375 F degrees. Add 1-2 pastels at a time, lowering each carefully into the hot oil and frying for about 15 to 20 seconds until golden brown. Then place the Pastel on paper towel to absorb the excess oil.