Sixteen golden parcels from one pack of mince
Across Latin America, this is what a home cook does with good mince: spice it gently with cumin and smoked paprika, fold in green olives and boiled egg, and tuck it into pastry you can hold in one hand. Sixteen golden parcels from one 480g pack. Bake a tray for dinner, freeze the rest, and watch them vanish out of school bags all week. And the pastry comes from the freezer aisle — this is a project, not a penance.
Ingredients
- 480g Your Farmer grass-fed beef mince
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large brown onion, finely diced
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 125ml beef stock
- 60g pitted green olives, roughly chopped
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
- Salt and pepper to season
- 4 sheets frozen shortcrust pastry, thawed
- 1 egg, beaten, to glaze
Instructions
For the filling
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and cook the onion for 5 minutes until soft.
1 tbsp olive oil1 onionAdd the mince and brown it well, breaking it up as you go.
480g beef minceStir in the cumin, paprika, oregano and tomato paste and cook for 1 minute until fragrant. Add the stock and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is moist but not wet. Season well.
2 tsp cumin2 tsp smoked paprika2 tbsp tomato paste125ml beef stockStir through the olives and chopped egg, then cool the filling completely — about 30 minutes spread on a tray, or faster in the fridge.
60g green olives2 hard-boiled eggsTo assemble and bake
Preheat the oven to 200°C fan-forced (220°C conventional) and line two large trays with baking paper. Cut four 12cm rounds from each pastry sheet — a small bowl or saucer makes a fine cutter.
4 sheets shortcrust pastryPlace a heaped tablespoon of filling on each round. Brush the edges with beaten egg, fold into half-moons and press the edges firmly with a fork to seal.
1 beaten eggArrange on the trays, brush the tops with the remaining egg and cut a tiny slit in each so steam can escape.
Bake for 22–25 minutes until deep golden, swapping the trays halfway.
Cool for 5 minutes before serving — the filling holds its heat — or cool completely for the lunchbox stash.
Appears in
In every beef share — Mince (480g)
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Spiced Mince, the South American Way
Nearly every great food culture has a pastry-wrapped answer to the question of good mince, and the empanada might be the best of them. The filling here leans on the classic pino style — beef, onion, cumin, paprika, olives and boiled egg — and it rewards a decent starting point. Your Farmer® mince is whole-animal trim from grass-fed cattle, so the beef flavour holds its own against the spices instead of hiding behind them, and it's the pack that arrives in our grass-fed beef subscription every time. The one rule that separates a good empanada from a soggy one: cook the filling until it's moist but not wet. If liquid pools on the spoon, keep simmering — wet filling is how pastry tears and bases steam. And brown the mince properly before the spices go in; those toasty edges are half the flavour of the finished parcel.
Swaps and Variations
- The full Chilean: add a tablespoon of raisins with the olives — the sweet-savoury combination is the traditional move, and better than it sounds.
- For the spice-wary: make half the batch with a corn-and-grated-cheese filling and everyone at the table is covered.
- Puff instead: puff pastry gives a lighter, flakier parcel — same oven temperature, just watch the colour from 20 minutes.
- Taco night's cousin: the same spice logic drives our Mexican beef mince tacos when you want dinner in twenty minutes instead of a baking project.
Storage and Leftovers
The freezer is where this recipe earns its keep. Freeze them unbaked: open-freeze the filled, glazed parcels on a tray until solid, bag them up, and bake straight from frozen, adding 8–10 minutes. Baked empanadas keep three days in the fridge and re-crisp in a 160°C oven in about ten minutes. For lunchboxes, bake and cool them completely, refrigerate overnight, and pack them with a small freezer brick. And if mince is the pack that vanishes fastest at your place, the sausages, mince and diced bundle tops up the exact three cuts that do the weeknight heavy lifting.
Reserve your share — the mince arrives in every box, and the freezer stays a friend.
Frequently asked questions
What do I use to cut the pastry rounds?
Should I freeze them baked or unbaked?
Can I leave out the olives or the egg?
Can I use puff pastry instead of shortcrust?
How many does one batch make?
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