Galician Empanada Recipe with Xoubas

Xoubas, also known as parrochas, are small sardines that are used as ingredients in many of the traditional recipes of Galician cuisine. For its part, the Galician empanada itself is a characteristic dish of this region of Spain and with this recipe we will teach you how to prepare an authentic traditional and homemade dish: the Galician xoubas empanada.

Ingredients to make Galician xoubas empanada:

• Dough:
• ½ liter of water
• 2 units of Egg
• ½ glass of milk
• 1 glass of strained sauce from sofrito
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ kilograms of flour
• 20 grams of yeast
• sofrito
• 5 units of Onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 units of Leek
• 1 unit of red pepper
• 1 unit of green pepper
• ¾ liter of olive oil
• 4 tablespoons of fried tomato
• ¼ liter of white wine
• 1 dessert spoon of paprika
• 2 threads of Saffron
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 kilogram of sardines
• 1 splash of lemon juice

How to make Galician xoubas empanada:

1 Chop the leeks, garlic, peppers and onion very finely. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the chopped vegetables, salt and fried tomato. Let it poach very well and add the saffron, paprika and finally the wine.

2 Reserve a large glass of strained sauce and begin kneading

3 Place the water, eggs, milk and salt in the mixer. When the salt has dissolved add a little flour and then the yeast mixed with another little flour.

4 Add half of the reserved sauce and continue kneading, adding flour little by little until you obtain an elastic, soft, uniform dough that does not stick to the machine or to your hands.

5 Two equal buns are made with the dough and by means of a roller and putting a thin layer of flour on the table, it is stretched, giving it the shape of the empanada. Then it is collected by rolling it on the roller and deposited on the empanada.

6 The sofrito is spread over the first layer of dough, so that it is uniform.

7 Now the raw xoubas (sardines) are placed, very clean and having previously added a dash of lemon juice, on the sofrito in a uniform manner

8 Now the other ball of dough is stretched in the same way as the first and placed on top. The excess dough is trimmed around and with it very thin strips are made to decorate the surface of the empanada to our liking.

9 Finally, it is closed around it, braiding the edges of the two layers of dough while we hold the strip of decorations. A central whole the size of a coin is made. Prick the entire surface with a fork and place it in a preheated oven at 200ºC.

10 After twenty minutes it is removed from the oven and by means of a brush and the rest of the reserved sauce, it is polished all over the surface. It is put back in the oven and approximately another twenty minutes later it is removed (controlling for the color, since each oven can vary a little)