Bon Appetit Beef Empanadas with Black Bean Dipping Sauce

Over the past couple of months I have been making a concerted effort to get my family to eat more beans. If left on their own they would eat all meat, with no beans ever touching their plates. The compromise I've come up with is trying to find dishes that incorporate both meat and beans. Given this idea, I was pleased when the June issue of Bon Appetit magazine had a recipe for beef empanadas with black bean dipping sauce.
 
This recipe has a large amount of ingredients, 15 in total. They were all easy to find at my local store or I already had in my pantry. The total time for this recipe was approximately 40 minutes, with 15 minutes of active cooking time. I made no substitutions or modifications to the recipe. I do suggest that fresh beans, while longer to prepare would enhance the flavor of the dish. The canned black beans are quicker, but the taste leaves something to de desired. Additionally, I had to add a significant amount of salt to the dipping sauce to enhance the flavor. The addition of another spice would bring the taste of the dipping sauce up another level.

 My two boys loved that the empanadas were easy to pick up and eat. They were quick to put together and tasted delicious. The one criticism of this dish is that the black bean sauce lacked flavor. I think modifying the recipe to include fresh beans and the addition of cayenne or diced jalapenos in the sauce would greatly enhance the taste. The beef filling could easily be substituted with your favorite chili (Texas, Cincinnati etc) or your favorite type of ground meat. This would be a great recipe to serve at a party as finger food, if the portions were made smaller.

This recipe is currently unavailable online, but can be found in the June issue of Bon Appetit magazine (in the r.s.v.p. section).