Food Stories is a column in which Best of Vegan community members share recipes from their cultures and personal stories connected to those dishes. Today, Lyana Blount of @blackricanvegan shares her recipe for Vegan Sofrito Chickpea Pastellios.
This recipe was featured in Lyana’s profile for the weekly BIPOC Portraits series by Val and Mani Latifi, where they interview vegan creators and shed light on the unique challenges BIPOCs face in making the decision to embrace veganism. Click here to see the full article.
The recipe I submitted was one of my first popular dishes I made when I first went vegan. My family and friends absolutely loved it and had me make it for all events and catering. Pastellios is an easy Puerto Rican treat food to make. It can be filled with anything, but traditionally it is filled with ground beef (pica dillo). I make mine with vegan ground, guava and cheese, and chickpeas. I know many people do not eat soy, which is why I shared the sofrito chickpea version. This simple dish brings back tons of memories.
Published with permission from @blackricanvegan.
Ingredients
- 1 16- oz drained can of chickpeas
- ½ cup diced bell peppers - multicolored
- ½ cup yellow onion
- 2 tablespoons green sofrito
- 1 packet of sazón
- 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
- 1 pack vegan empanada discs - Goya is accidentally vegan
- ¼ cup pitted olives - optional
- Grapeseed oil for frying
- 1 pan for frying
Instructions
- In a sauté pan over medium heat, add your tablespoon of grapeseed oil and let it heat up for about 2 minutes. Once it’s hot, add your bell peppers and onions and cook for 2 minutes.
- Follow that by adding your drained can of chickpeas, sofrito, salt, pepper, sazón, and oregano. Combine and cook for 5 minutes. Mix occasionally.
- Add your tomato sauce and olives, mix and lower the heat to low to allow everything to simmer for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally to avoid food sticking to the pan or overcooking.
- Once that’s done, remove chickpeas from the heat and allow them to cool to room temperature. (You should be able to stick your finger in the mixture without it feeling hot)
- Lay out an empanada disc and scoop 2 small spoons of chickpea mixture to the center of the disc.
- Fold the disc and wet the circumference to seal the disc. Using a fork press down from left to right, creating line creases in the disc. Repeat until all the dough and filling mixture has been used up.
- Fill your frying pan with about an inch full of grapeseed oil and heat to 350ºF/180ºC. Once you’ve reached the suggested temperature, carefully place your disc into the pan and cook on both sides for about 2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Once it’s done, remove from heat onto a drying rack or paper towel, and enjoy!
Text, recipe & photography by Lyana Blount of Black Rican Vegan.
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Would love to make this recipe. .in the instructions, it mentions tomato sauce, but i dont see it on the ingredient list to know how much to use.