Woman makes homemade Colombian empanadas

ST. LOUIS -- Rubiela Garcia gently kneads the corn-flour dough by hand, adding the occasional splash of water.

"She has to do it with her hands because it's the only way she can feel that it's exactly how it should be," said her husband, Orlando Moreno.

By the time the weekend rolls around, Garcia will have made enough dough to fashion about 800 empanadas. She'll also have made several hundred tamales tolimenses, another specialty of her Colombian homeland.

She and Moreno sold them recently at the annual Fiesta in Florissant, Mo., which highlights the cuisines and cultures of countries throughout South and Central America.

"We start about two weeks in advance," Moreno says. "I say 'we,' but it's really all my wife." Garcia speaks English but is more comfortable in Spanish; Moreno provided commentary and translation while she cooked.

Moreno, a computer programmer, came to America from Colombia as a student nine years ago. Garcia moved here under refugee status five years ago, and the couple met in St. Louis. They were married in July.

The empanadas are similar to meat pies made in many Hispanic cultures, but Garcia gives hers a special Colombian touch with Triguisar, a commercial mix of cumin, garlic, annato and other spices. The couple travels to La Placita, a Hispanic market in Hazelwood, when they need to stock up on Triguisar. She serves the empanadas with a salsa made of onion, tomato, cilantro, lemon, vinegar and a little hot chile pepper.

The tamales, on the other hand, are different from the Mexican style that's best known to most North Americans. Garcia starts with a corn-flour dough, but it's placed at the base of the tamale rather than wrapping all the way around the filling in a cylinder like a Mexican tamale. She makes a salsa of garlic, cilantro and chilies, adding it to the rice but also using it to marinate large chunks of chicken and pork. She also slices potatoes and carrots and chops both white and green onions.

The tamale is then constructed like a packaged gift with a banana leaf as a wrapper. First Garcia spreads a base of the corn-flour dough, then she tops it with a layer of seasoned rice. Hunks of chicken and pork, about four ounces apiece, come next, with the two types of onions on top. The final ingredients are two slices of carrot and two slices of potato, placed in circular fashion at the noon, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock points. Garcia then ties off the leaf and, when she has enough tamales for a pot full, submerges them in boiling water for about an hour and 45 minutes.

"From my mom," Garcia said, in English, when asked where she learned the technique.

Moreno said that it's become much easier to find ingredients in the nine years he's lived here. "Now there are many Mexican stores and international markets that carry what we need," Moreno said. And in the case of the tamales, the only really exotic ingredient is the banana leaves, which the couple buys in 30-pound boxes from Jay International Foods.

Moreno and Garcia, who works as a nanny, have occasionally talked about opening a Colombian restaurant in St. Louis. "When our friends find out that my wife is making her empanadas and tamales, they always call us and ask to make some for them," Moreno said. "And we always sell out at the festivals. But we're not sure that there would always be such a demand."