ALMOST ARGENTINA

This is, "technically," a cabbage torta - again, a Melissa Clark-inspired dinner I made last night.
Why I titled this blog "Almost Argentina" is because I'm going there next month to train with a local chef. That country's staple is empanada.

I've been really wanting to make empanadas since my travel last Christmas in Vermont, where one of the folks we met there gave me a free farm fat to render as lard, and use that in my dough. Finally, I did. (I can just imagine how I'll be doing the "real thing" in Buenos Aires at the chef's home whose offerings as presented, I might add, have a very poetic ethos photographically and journalistically.)

Here's the recipe/measurements for the dough:
1.5 cups flour, 1 cup rendered lard, 1 tsp fine salt, and 1/8 cup sugar, if you like it savory. 
(Combine, knead, ball, wrap-rest in plastic for 20 minutes, then roll pin flat to a quarter inch thin, approx 11 by 14 rectangle.)

Cook veggies this way (a new trick, bottom-up caramelizing): oil large pan, medium low heat, onions, cooked fingerlings potato, cooked garlic cloves, cabbage (in that order, onions on the bottom), and spices on top - sweet paprika, Herbs de Provence, salt and pepper, of course, a little sumac, a little za'atar, a good drizzle of vinegar- rice wine, cider, balsamic, lemon, whatever you have. The trick is - cover pan with foil, and let it alone for about 20 minutes, "mas o menos." What you'll be looking for is the blackening of the onions, and by this time all the juices have synergized, and the veggies have wilted like nature's biomass. 

Spoon over filling onto the dough at one side and grate over tons of mild easy-melt cheese recommended by your local cheesemonger,  and then flip the other side over and seal with a fork on all sides, brush beaten eggs over to color gold, and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. And there's your "torta," for now. 

But it's almost Argentina.