Pastelitos with Picadillo

     Let me begin with the disclaimer that these are not authentic pastelitos filled with authentic picadillo. They are, however, based on the recipes. I nicked the basic cornmeal recipe from The Daily Meal and winged the picadillo based on the couple other times I made it from authentic recipes. The end result was pretty damned good. We wound up dousing them with some homemade pique hot sauce and they elevated to another level entirely. You can certainly feel free to mess around with the filling. I'm sure that most savory fillings would work here. Next time we might consider adding some cheese in there. Everything is better with cheese. As always, any notes are in blue. 

Pastelitos with Picadillo

Ingredients
Dough

• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 4 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• Vegetable oil for frying

Picadillo Filling

• 1-1/4 pounds ground beef (I used 80/20 to keep the fat down)
• 1 packet Sazon seasoning
• 1/2 cup chopped green olives
• 1 teaspoon dried minced onion
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Dough

1. Boil the water in a small saucepan and add the salt and butter. Combine the cornmeal and flour in a bowl. Add the boiling water, mixing well to form a soft dough. Set aside and let stand for 30 minutes.

Picadillo Filling

1. Heat oil in a skillet and add ground beef. Add the minced onion, olives and sazon. Brown the meat. Drain any excess oil.
2. Add the tomato sauce and stir to mix.

Assembly

1. Heat about 1" of vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet
2. Take a big spoonful  (about 2 tablespoons full) of the cornmeal mix and flatten it out in the palm of your hand. Fill it with a heaping teaspoonful of the picadillo. Take another smaller scoop of the cornmeal mix and flatten it over the top. Work it into whatever shape you like. We ended up with pastelitos roughly the size and shape of a hockey puck.
3. Fry each pastelito for 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Good times!