Sausage and Apple Empanadas -- Sweet, Savory, and Wearing a Seatbelt

Second date with Jason. Dinner this time — he took me to a restaurant in downtown Anchorage, a nice one, the kind with cloth napkins and wine lists and the particular attentiveness of a waitstaff that knows they're facilitating something more than dinner. He ordered salmon. I ordered halibut. We shared a bottle of sparkling water because I don't drink and he doesn't on shift nights and the sparkling water was fine, more than fine, because the conversation was the thing, not the beverage.

He asked about the blog. I told him about documenting Lourdes's recipes, about the summer cooking marathon, about the readers who email at 3 AM with their own stories. He listened — genuinely listened, not the performative listening of a man waiting for his turn to talk but the real kind, where the questions come from what you said, not from a prepared script. He asked, "What does the cooking give you?" I said, "Everything the ER takes." He nodded. He's a paramedic. He understands the taking. He has his own version of the floor, I think, his own place where the job brought him down, though he hasn't told me about it and I haven't asked because first dates are for appetizers, not main courses.

I went home and made pork barbecue — Filipino-style, the kind on sticks, marinated in a sweet soy-and-banana-ketchup glaze that caramelizes on the grill. Street food in the Philippines, party food in Alaska. I made it because I was happy — a specific, quiet happiness that sat in my chest like warmth, like the feeling after a good shift, like the first bite of adobo after a bad one. The happiness was cautious. The happiness was wearing a seatbelt. But it was there.

The pork barbecue came off the grill sticky and charred and sweet, the banana ketchup giving it a flavor that's uniquely Filipino — sweet in a way American barbecue never is, with a tropical edge that comes from the banana and the lemon-lime soda that Lourdes adds to her marinade (a secret I will take to my grave and also put on the blog, because consistency is not my strong suit).

I ate the barbecue on sticks, standing at the stove, and texted Angela: "I went on a date." Three dots. Three dots. Three dots. Then: "TELL ME EVERYTHING." I told her some things. Not everything. Some things are for me and the kitchen and the quiet happiness that is still learning to trust itself. But some things are for sisters. The date was one of them.

The pork barbecue was Lourdes’s recipe — and I’ve written about that one already — but the next morning I was still in that careful, seatbelted happiness and I wanted to cook something that held its filling close, something wrapped and sealed, sweet where you don’t expect it. These Sausage and Apple Empanadas are exactly that: a little sweet from the apple, savory and warm from the sausage, and tucked into a crust that keeps everything together. It felt right. So did the night before.

Sausage and Apple Empanadas

Prep Time: 35 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 12 empanadas

Ingredients

• Dough:
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup cold water
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• Filling:
• 3/4 lb ground pork sausage (mild or sweet Italian)
• 1 medium apple (Honeycrisp or Fuji), peeled, cored, and finely diced
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Egg Wash:
• 1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water

Instructions

1. Make the dough. Whisk flour and salt together in a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter or your fingertips, work the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with pea-sized pieces remaining. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, cold water, and apple cider vinegar. Drizzle over the flour mixture and stir with a fork until the dough just comes together. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, knead 4–5 times until smooth, then flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
2. Cook the filling. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Add the pork sausage and break it up with a wooden spoon, cooking until browned and cooked through, about 6 minutes. Drain excess fat if needed. Stir in the diced apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and smoked paprika. Cook another 3 minutes until the apple is just tender. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and let cool completely.
3. Roll and cut the dough. Preheat oven to 400°F and line two baking sheets with parchment. On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out circles approximately 5 inches in diameter using a round cutter, bowl rim, or glass. Re-roll scraps as needed to get about 12 circles.
4. Fill and seal the empanadas. Place about 2 tablespoons of cooled filling in the center of each dough circle. Fold the dough over to form a half-moon shape and press the edges firmly together. Crimp with a fork or fold and twist the edge to seal. Arrange on the prepared baking sheets.
5. Egg wash and bake. Brush the tops of each empanada with the egg wash. Bake for 22–25 minutes, rotating pans halfway through, until deep golden brown. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 245 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 21g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 310mg