Empanada de patata, one of the gastronomic favourites of Jumilla

A lovely tasty and filling accompaniment to the Easter Week processions of Jumilla!

Particularly popular during the processions and celebrations of Semana Santa in Jumilla, which have been awarded International Tourist Interest status, this humble but tasty speciality sounds incredibly basic, but is an appetizing and filling dish to keep the strength up during the sometimes cold evenings on which the main events take place.

The main ingredients of the pie are the dough (made with flour, water and salt), and the filling of fried potato, tuna, boiled egg, peppers, pine kernels and parsley.

The fish is available all year round in Jumilla, or if you want to try hour hand at making it yourself a typical recipe is as follows:

Ingredients for the filling

1.5 kg potatoes

250 g canned tuna

5 eggs

500 g tinned red pepper

Parsley

Pine kernels

Ingredients for the pastry

Flour (as much as needed)

2 glasses water (or white wine)

1 glass of olive oil

Salt (no more than a pinch or two)

Saffron or food colouring

Instructions: Place the flour in a bowl, make a hole in the centre and pour in the oil and wine after heating them gently in a saucepan for a few minutes (without boiling). Then mix the flour with the salt and saffron until the dough no longer sticks to the hands.

Knead well and place thin individual portions the size of small pancakes.

Now peel, wash and cut the potatoes into fine slices, and sauté them in oil together.

Next, place them in a bowl, draining off the oil when taking them out of the frying pan, cut the peppers into thin strips and crush the parsley. Hard-boil 4 eggs and cut these too into small pieces.

Now mix the potatoes with the peppers, parsley, eggs, tuna and pine kernels and put approximately two soup spoonfuls of the mix onto each portion of pastry. Fold the pastry portions closed and seal the edges with the appropriate cooking implement (or fingernails!).

Lastly, use the fifth egg to baste the empanadas with a brush before cooking in the oven.

Note: a popular variant on the dish uses fried tomato paste instead of potatoes, while some place sliced pipped olives in the filling.

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