The Empanada Parlour
500 East Fourth Street, 480-8902
Open Sun 10am-4pm, Mon 7am-3pm,
Tu-Sat 7am-8pm
India meets Mexico,” says Ash Corea, owner and sole cook at the
recently opened
Empanada Parlour, describing the seasoning in her tasty, turkey-stuffed
pastry.
“It’s a pur�e of cumin, cinnamon, coriander, clove, turmeric,
cardamon,
and chipotle sauce.”
Not many cooks would think of blending an Indian masala with the
pungent
smoked jalape�o, let alone season ground turkey with the mixture
and put
the whole thing in an empanada (all for $1.35). But after a teenage
apprenticeship in the kitchen of an Indian friend’s grandmother,
graduation
from the Cordon Bleu in Paris at the age of 18, and nearly 30 years of
cooking
in culinary centers of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Mexico,
and the
U.S., Corea knows a bit about integrating the flavors of distant
cuisines. A
lifetime of dabbling in the international restaurant scene finally led
the
transplanted Londoner to a place where she can create her own
distinctive
recipes: Austin, Texas.
“This is my dream,” says the hardworking Corea, who can be found
16-18 hours a
day at the Empanada Parlour, preparing the entire menu, doubling as
hostess/waitress, or supervising one of the other numerous tasks of
running a
restaurant. When I asked about the eatery’s name, I found out the dream
involves more than simply creating exquisite food.
“In England, the parlour is the room where people relax – the living
room,”
she explains. “The Empanada Parlour is for people who are kind and like
to eat.
A place for people, regardless of color, religion, or sexual
preference, to
come and feel comfortable.”
True, the confines of the downtown venue are homey. Large windows let
in
plenty of sunshine for Corea’s potted herbs, harvested for her recipes,
and the
informal air and pleasing art do almost make you feel like taking off
your
shoes. But why this parlour’s focus on empanadas?
“Empanadas are a pan ingl�s,” expounds the Brit; both
her
affection for the stuffed pastries and her inspiration to become a cook
can be
traced to a corner bakery in her East London childhood. “They were
brought to
the New World by the Europeans a century ago. In England, they contain
pieces
of beef, potato, and carrot; the classic Argentinian or Chilean ones
have beef,
raisin, egg, and some black olive. You see, the reason I like empanadas
is
because you can put anything in them.”
And she does mean anything. The Parlour’s empanadas, sweet or savory
fillings
inside baked pastry shells that hardly resemble the familiar, fried
Mexican
variation, boast unconventional but expert flavor combinations – the
result of
Corea’s years of touring the global village menu.
For example, the restaurant’s spinach empanada ($1.35) blends the
tastes of
three very different regions. The filling contains the spinach and feta
cheese
found in a Greek spanakopita, a dish she mastered during an extended
stay on
the island of Cyprus, mixed with baby bok choy (via the many Cantonese
restaurants of London), and again a bit of the chipotle sauce, no doubt
a
discovery of her adventures in Oaxaca and the Yucat�n. And
though the
admixture sounds strange, it works uncannily well.
Similarly, the spices and raisins of the savory chicken empanada
($1.35) are
Argentinian and Chilean, but the herbs and rich demiglace are
resoundingly
French, forming a radical but pleasing collaboration of New and Old
Worlds.
According to Corea, this cross-culinary synergism is nothing new for a
Paris-trained cook.
“French cuisine itself is an amalgam of different influences. It has so
much
from all over the world, [much of it] brought by the Crusaders,” says
the chef,
who has complemented her passion for food with degrees in social
history,
political economy, and social psychology. “It is so varied. If I had to
eat one
cuisine for the rest of my life, it would be French. Not because I
think it’s
the best, but because it’s the most interesting.”
Corea’s most complex empanada, a blend of Monterey Jack cheese,
garlic, green
olive, cilantro pesto, and sweet potato ($1.35), is the result of its
creator’s
newfound affection for the sugary vegetal root that inspired it. “Sweet
potatoes are something I arrived at late in life, and only in Texas. I
first
tasted them in 1993 and thought they were delicious, [so] I started
developing
recipes for them.”
The potato empanada is not the only of Corea’s creations with Texas
roots. “I
went to Fredericksburg and tasted the fresh peaches and preserves
there, which
reminded me of a peach liqueur I had in Hungary years ago. I then
decided I
would do a peach empanada [$1.25] because of [the fruit’s] influence in
Texas,”
she says.
Austinites may be familiar with Corea’s other fruit-filled pastries
(apricot,
apple, and pear – all $1.25 each), available at Whole Foods Market,
Central
Market, G�ero’s, Las Manitas, Martin Bros., Insomnia, Mozart, and
other
locations around town. There is also talk of adding another fruit
flavor, one
sure to be a Parlour classic: banana (from Chile), pecan (from Texas),
and
cajeta (caramelized goat milk from Mexico).
“By Halloween we are going to add one sweet empanada and one savory,”
adds
Corea. “The `sweet’ will contain a Mexican pumpkin filling based on a
recipe
from Monterrey. The `savory’ will be [like a recipe] from the
ind�genos of Argentina: a masa filling, like a tamal, but
cut
with a mixture of tomatoes, chicken, tarragon, and rosemary, then mixed
with
fresh corn. Kind of like `Italy meets Argentina.'”
In addition to its empanadas, the Parlour features a number of
other
exceptional, original dishes. Among these are a popular hummus-squash
sandwich
on homemade bread ($4.50), cold spinach soup with miso stock ($3.50),
Caesar
salad with anchovies upon request ($3.50), and one of the finest bowls
of
chicken soup ($3.50) in town.
The menu will continue to grow if Corea has anything to say about it.
“My goal is to have an empanada filling from every country in Latin
America.
[After that] I’d like to do a Hungarian goulash empanada and possibly
an
Italian, with a tomato sauce and perhaps some Italian sausage.”
There seems to be no end to Corea’s imagination when it comes to the
worldly
cuisine of her Empanada Parlour. And with open-minded Austin diners as
her
guests, perhaps she has found a home for her living room.
This article appears in May 12 • 1995 and May 12 • 1995 (Cover).