Argentina is really well known for their beef; however, you’d be surprised what you can find out with a little digging. When perusing around the world wide web, I wanted to find out if Argentina had an asado for Easter (traditional barbeque event in South America) like the Christmas Asado. And what do you know? They do.
We won’t get into all those details. That’s another article for another day, but my big “get” was that the beef-loving country loves their seafood too, especially during the Lenten season. A large percentage of Argentinians identify as Catholics so the 40 day period during Lent is meatless. All the more reason to switch out the beef/pork in their empanadas and make the traditional empanadas de vigilia.
The empanadas de vigiilia are meatless and will include options like seafood. Tuna or white fish are popular and some recipes may have veggies like spinach. A real favorite is the empanada with Roquefort, which is a blue mold cheese from France, made from sheep’s milk. The Roquefort empanadas are blended with walnuts for a savory treat.
The empanadas de vigilia are typically eaten before Christmas and it is also traditionally eaten before Easter Sunday. Now, when Easter Sunday comes around, it’s time to grab the whole slab of beef. Meatless is over! But more than that..it’s a celebration of Resurrection Sunday and the Easter asado is on! (I told you I’m not writing about that now.)
Argentine Atun Empanadas Recipe (Tuna Empanadas)
Ingredients
1 tablespoons oil
onion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cans (5oz each) tuna
1 tomato, crushed
10 empanadas tapas (discs) for baking (preferably puff pastry dough)
1 egg, beaten
See the full recipe on Que Rica Vida
Multi Cultural Cooking Network 