The empanada is a food of deceptive simplicity. A portable pocket of dough bearing fillings of meat, cheese, vegetables, or mariscos. But it is all too easy to get empanadas wrong. Dry fillings. Dough that is too thick or too hard. A dud empanada is an arid starch bomb that no amount of red wine can save.
At Donde Cristian, a small sidewalk stand found at a busy intersection in Van Nuys on most nights of the week, Marcelo Valdebenito sells Chilean-style empanadas that take me back to my aunt’s kitchen in Santiago. (I’m Chilean on my mother’s side.)
Valdebenito’s dough is thin and pliable—never dry. And his fillings are carefully made. An empanada de pino (beef empanada) is crafted with hand-chopped beef stewed with onions, cumin, and oregano. But the revelation is his empanada Napolitano (Neapolitan-style empanada), a mix of tomato, ham, cheese, and oregano that gently oozes when you bite into it.
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He offers homemade pebre (the Chilean cousin of chimichurri) as a topping, which Valdebenito makes with a finely chopped mix of onions, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, oil, and lemon juice.