Pastelitos de Queso de Bola

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide mixing bowl
• •Pastry cutter or fingertips for cutting in the lard
• •Rolling pin
• •3 1/2-inch round cutter
• •Box grater
• •Parchment-lined sheet pan
• •Pastry brush for the egg wash

Instructions

1. 1

   Mix the dry ingredients

   Whisk the flour, sugar, and salt together in a wide bowl. Pasta quebrada is a short pastry, the Yucatecan cousin of the Spanish pasta brisa, and the sugar belongs in the dough itself. This is what gives the pastelito its tender bite and the faint sweetness that argues with the salt of the cheese. Do not skip it.

2. 2

   Cut in the lard

   Add the cold lard to the flour. Work it in with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal with some pea-sized lumps still visible. La manteca es el sabor. Butter will give you a French dough. Lard gives you a Yucatecan one. The lumps of fat are what create the flaky pockets when the dough hits the oven.

   If your kitchen is warm, put the bowl in the refrigerator for ten minutes before moving on. Warm lard turns to paste and you lose the flake.
3. 3

   Bring the dough together

   Whisk the egg yolk with four tablespoons of ice water and the vinegar. Pour into the flour mixture and stir with a fork until the dough begins to clump. Add more water one tablespoon at a time only if needed. Press the dough together with your hands. It should hold when squeezed but still look a little shaggy. Overworked dough turns tough. Divide in half, flatten into discs, wrap, and refrigerate for at least one hour.

4. 4

   Prepare the queso de bola

   Remove the red wax from the queso de bola with a small knife. The cheese underneath is pale yellow, dense, and sharp. Grate eight ounces on the fine side of a box grater. Cube the remaining two ounces small, about the size of a pea. Toss the grated cheese with the tablespoon of sugar. In Mérida the sugar in the filling is not a mistake and it is not a Tex-Mex invention. It is how the panaderías on Calle 62 have always done it. The sweet-salt tension is the dish.

5. 5

   Roll the dough

   Working with one disc at a time, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface to about an eighth of an inch thick. Cut into rounds with a three-and-a-half-inch cutter. Re-roll the scraps once. After that, the dough has been worked enough. Throwing out a little dough is better than serving tough pastelitos.

6. 6

   Fill and seal

   Place about one heaping tablespoon of the grated cheese mixture in the center of each round, topping with two or three small cubes. Lift the edges and pinch them closed over the filling, forming a small half-moon or a sealed pouch with the seam underneath. Press the edges with the tines of a fork. The seal matters. Cheese leaking out into the oven is melted cheese wasted, and a dry pastelito is a sad one.

7. 7

   Chill the formed pastelitos

   Place the filled pastelitos seam-side down on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Refrigerate for twenty minutes while the oven heats. Cold dough into a hot oven is what makes the lard puff instead of melt. No me vengas con atajos. The chill is the recipe.

8. 8

   Bake until golden

   Heat the oven to 375°F. Brush the chilled pastelitos with the egg wash. Sprinkle with the optional sugar, lightly, just enough to catch on top. Bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes, rotating the pan once halfway, until the tops are deep golden and you can see a little of the cheese bubbling at any open seams. Let them rest on the pan for five minutes. The cheese inside is molten and will burn the roof of your mouth if you rush it.

9. 9

   Serve with coffee

   Eat them warm, two or three at a time, with strong black coffee. In Mérida they are sold por pieza at the panadería on a wooden tray, picked up with metal tongs and slid into a paper bag. At home, set them on a clay plate and let people take what they want. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Queso de bola is the recipe. Real aged Edam with the red wax, sold under names like Frico or the Yucatecan brand Yara. If your store only has young Edam, the flavor will be flatter. Cheddar is not a substitute. It melts wrong and the flavor is sweet where queso de bola is sharp. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Lard, not butter. Pasta quebrada in Yucatán is built on manteca and that is what gives the shell its tender crumble and the right background flavor against the cheese. Vegetable shortening will produce a paler, blander dough. La manteca es el sabor.
• •Some panaderías skip the sugar on top and some dust it heavily. Doña Carmela used a light hand: enough to catch on the egg wash and crackle in the oven, not enough to make it a dessert. Start light. You can always add more on the next batch.
• •These are afternoon pastries, not breakfast and not dessert. In Mérida they go with the late coffee around four or five o'clock. They cool, they keep, they reheat in a low oven for a few minutes the next morning.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made up to two days ahead and kept wrapped in the refrigerator. Let it sit at room temperature for ten minutes before rolling.
• •Formed, unbaked pastelitos freeze well on a sheet pan. Once frozen solid, transfer to a bag and keep for up to one month. Bake from frozen, adding five minutes to the time.
• •Baked pastelitos keep at room temperature for one day, refrigerated for three. Reheat in a 325°F oven for five to seven minutes to bring back the flake. The microwave turns them rubbery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 50g)