by Chef Paulo Machado & Cris Couto,in referente do Regional Food
From the tenderest hours of the day until lunch, the salteñas are always roasted in the streets of Cochabamba, Bolivia, a city that, as chef Franz Corrales, a native of the region, taught me, the motto is “live to eat, and not to eat to live ”. From meat, pork or chicken, and accessories such as boiled eggs, olives and raisins, the salty crumbles, succulently, in the mouth.
The thick “juice”, some report, is the result of gelatine mixed with the filling (jigote), which hardens in the freezer overnight, melting slowly the next morning, when the dough is baked. History credits her “creation” to Juana Manuela Gorriti, a famous Argentine writer and native of Salta, exiled in 1831 in Tarija, Bolivia, who adapted her country’s empanada recipe to support herself in foreign lands.
The history of the salteña in Pantanal lands reinforces the concept of frontier cuisine and Regional Food, which is born in a region that has been politically demarcated, which does not mean that its culinary habits follow the same logic.
Salteña
Ingredients:
for mass:
1 kg of wheat flour
1 American cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup American hot oil
2 glasses of water
for the filling:
1 chicken breast
1.5 kg of potato
500 g of chopped onion
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup American oil
black pepper and salt to taste
way of preparing:
For the dough, mix the wheat flour with the sugar. Add salt and paprika, and mix well.
Then pour the hot oil and mix with your hands. Add the water little by little and knead until smooth. Let it rest for an hour in a plastic bag.
For the filling, cook the chicken and set aside. In the same water that cooked the chicken, cook the diced potatoes in cubes.
Fry the onion in a glass of oil and add the paprika. Fry some more, and then add the onion to the pan in which the potato is.
Add the shredded chicken, salt and pepper.
Take the stuffing to the refrigerator and let it sit overnight (about 12 hours) before stuffing the sausages. Roll out the dough on a table sprinkled with wheat flour and cut into slices the size of a tea saucer. Place two tablespoons of filling in the center of the dough and close them, bringing the edges together and squeezing them tightly. At this point, make a fold, sealing the excess mass and sculpting it with small folded tips, typical design of the edges of the salting (see photo of the dish).
Brush with egg yolk and place on a baking sheet, greased with oil, to cook over medium heat (180 ºC) for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
