Empada

The empada belongs to the Iberian-Brazilian family of baked pastries that descends from the Portuguese and Spanish empada and empanada, words rooted in the verb meaning to wrap in bread or pastry; the form reached Brazil during the colonial centuries and settled into local baking. Over time a clear Brazilian distinction took hold: the empada became a small, lidded, mould-baked pie with a tender short crust and a soft filling, set apart from the fried, folded empanada or the Argentine empanada. It is a long-standing item of bakeries and confeitarias across the country, and the saucy chicken empada (empada de frango) and the hearts-of-palm empada (de palmito) are among the most familiar fillings. The larger sliceable form is called the empadao.

A pie the size of a large muffin top, pale gold, with a crisp-edged lid you lift or cut into. The crust is rich and short — it shatters and crumbles rather than flakes, almost shortbread-like from the butter and egg yolk — and gives way to a warm, soft, saucy centre. A classic chicken empada is moist shredded chicken in a thickened, lightly seasoned sauce, often with olives, peas and hearts of palm; the palmito version is creamy and tangy. Eaten warm, usually with a fork because the filling is too loose to hold by hand.

The pastry is a massa podre ('rotten', i.e. very short dough) made with a high proportion of fat — butter or lard — and egg yolk, worked as little as possible so the fat coats the flour and limits gluten; this is what makes it crumble and melt rather than turn tough. Chilling rests the dough and keeps the fat solid so the shell holds its moulded shape. The filling is pre-cooked and thickened, then cooled, because a hot or runny filling would melt the raw pastry and leak; the thickener and the cooling let it set just enough to bake inside a sealed case. Baking in a mould supports the soft crust until the egg-washed lid sets and colours.