Mushroom and Cheese Empanada

This recipe was created like most, by default! I had some seta mushrooms in the fridge and thought, what should I do with them? Then I had some leftover scraps of empanada dough too that had to be used soon. So I said 1+1=2 isn't it? I'll make an empanada!

Ingredients needed:

-100g of seta mushrooms
-an onion or leek
-a quarter or half of a tomato
-two tbsp. of tomato sauce or paste
-a tbsp. of olive oil
-150g of the cheese of your choice
-two tbsp. of butter
-1/3 cup of milk
-empanada dough
-four tbsp. of flour
-an egg
-salt

First rinse the seta mushrooms off and dry off with some paper kitchen towel. Slice the mushroom up in strips, dice up an onion and/or leek and cut the tomato up. Pour a spoon of olive oil in a pan and saute the lightly salted vegetables on medium heat for about 10 minutes. You don't want the vegetables to be too done, but you want them to have released their juices and have browned a bit.
When the vegetables are done, turn them off and allow them to cool for several minutes. In the meantime, make the cheese sauce! Melt the butter in a pot. Add two tbsp. of flour and whisk so that the flour cooks. Mix in the milk, adding it little by little. You want the bechamel sauce, which is what you are making, to be thick. You don't want it to be too liquidy so make sure to add the milk little by little and if it's getting too liquidy then don't add all the milk. Whisk the sauce, under a low flame. It'll thicken in a few minutes. When it seems done, add 1-2 tbsp. of tomato sauce, some salt and the grated cheese and mix. You can also add pepper or fresh herbs. There are no rules to cooking so feel free to experiment! After the cheese has melted and is mixed in well, pour the seta mushroom mixture into the cheese sauce, stir in and then allow to cool.

To prepare the dough, sprinkle flour on the kitchen top. If it's leftover empanada dough as I had, then roll it into a ball, put it on the kitchen top, flatten it out with your hand and then roll out with a floured rolling pin. Flip the dough over and roll out each side several times in order to make a square or circle. You'll have to make two of these same shapes for the empanada. Of course the easiest thing is, if you are using new frozen dough that has already been semi-rolled out and is shaped so it's easier to work with. You can see more detailed images of how to do this in previous empanada postings.
Preheat the oven on high. Place a piece of parchment paper on a large cookie pan, place the rolled out dough on top and then pour the filling on the dough. Spread it out, being careful not to break the dough. Once the filling is rolled out, place the other dough on top, and then roll the sides of the lower dough in with the sides of the upper dough layer. Brush the egg on the dough and then lightly poke holes in the top with a fork.

Lower the oven temperature to 180C/356F and place the empanada in the oven. Allow to bake for 25-35 minutes. Remove from the oven when the top has browned like in the picture below:
When done, take the empanada out of the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes and then cut and serve! Try not to burn yourself i your excitement to try this yummy treat!

Remember that you can make just about any kind of empanada. The key is to make sure that the filling isn't too liquidy and to roll the sides of the empanada up so that it doesn't open up in the oven.

Enjoy and keep enjoying the kitchen!