Ana’s Empanadas I

When Ana DiTursi traveled last year to Salta, a city at the foot of the towering Andes in the northwest corner of her native Argentina, she visited many shops, where she tasted and chatted, seeking a perfect empanada. When she found one that was special, a crispy and spicy saltena, she persuaded the elderly woman who’d made it to reveal the recipe. Now, DiTursi produces the meat-filled pastry herself, using “one of the secrets that before no one else knows,” she says, “and that is how to make it juicy.” She can’t be cajoled into giving away the formula. She’ll only confirm that she uses local organic beef, potatoes, and onions in the saltena, which was one of her hot sellers at last Wednesday’s Woodstock Market on the Green.

DiTursi started her business, Ana’s Empanadas, three years ago after wandering through the Rutland Farmer’s Market and sampling a fried product that was billed as an empanada. Shortly thereafter, she too was a vendor at the market, with a little table and fifty of her own baked version of the hearty Spanish snack. Now DiTursi and her husband Robert prepare 19 kinds of the stuffed pastries, including some with meat, others with vegetables, and a few with fruit. Through the summer season they sell at five farmer’s markets. During the winter, they serve empanadas to hungry skiers and snowboarders from a wood and canvas “cabin” near the Needle’s Eye lift at the Killington Resort.

Ana long ago had a feeling that she might someday be selling empanadas. She always loved to bake, and after she and Robert met in New York City and married fourteen years ago, she made empanadas whenever they went to gatherings of family or friends. “I was baking like fifty empanadas or a hundred empanadas, and I’d bring them to the party,” she says, laughing, “five minutes, all gone!” Some of her husband’s friends began to call her “Empanada” instead of “Ana.” Although all the empanada baking was just an avocation then, DiTursi says she spent three years getting the dough just right. She experimented with different flours and shortenings, and learned how to compensate for humid weather, which tends to make the dough soft, and cold weather, which makes it difficult to knead and roll out. Eventually she developed the combination of ingredients that produced a toothsome pastry that could be worked to just the right thickness.

The rellenos, or fillings, are the result of collaboration between Ana and Robert. Some are purely Argentine, like the caprese, with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, and the de humita, with corn, cream, and cheese. The pulled pork and smoked ham and cheddar rellenos are based on more traditionally North American combinations. “The market vegetable empanada from week to week is usually my favorite,” says Robert, “we go around at the end of the market and see what’s the freshest and the best, and then come up with something.” Last week, it was local roasted corn, zucchini, and tomato, tossed with queso campo de montalban, a Spanish combination of cow, goat and sheep cheeses. While the DiTursis occasionally use out-of-state products, almost all of their ingredients come directly from nearby farmer’s markets and farms, including On the Edge Farm in Woodstock, and a number of Rutland County producers.

The DiTursi’s partnership developed after their very different paths crossed by chance. Ana studied classical ballet for over a decade at the prestigious Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. She danced with an Argentine company, but when its government funding dried up, she relocated to New York City. Robert was born and raised in East Brunswick, New Jersey. He headed for the Big Apple at 18 and began a career in the food business. While Ana was performing with several ballet companies and appearing in Broadway and off- Broadway productions, Robert was learning the ropes of restaurant operations with stints as dish washer, waiter, bartender, cook, and ultimately general manager. They met one morning as Ana was on her way to rehearsal in the performance space of a building where Robert coincidentally rented an apartment. His father was helping him move, and Ana held the door as they lugged out a potted plant. “That was it,” said Robert, “I gave her my business card and begged her to call me.” Ana spoke little English then; she delayed calling while she wrote and translated a script for their first telephone conversation. They married seven months later.

A desire to live in the country after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 and the birth of their first child was the catalyst for the couple’s move to Vermont. Now they live in Chittenden and run the business from their state licensed home kitchen.

Since all of their empanadas are hand-made, the DiTursis are almost always either baking for the current day’s market or planning future production. But they enjoy that their business is successful, and growing. They are working on bottling their popular chimichurri sauce, which should be available this fall. And they’re expanding their offerings at the Killington location by adding a parilla, a grill for cooking Argentine-style meats and sandwiches.

Ana’s Empanadas is the Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) featured vendor for September 8. Ana and Robert will be making empanadas in demonstrations at 4:00 and 5:15. Come meet them and try out what Robert says is a little bit of heaven folded up in a pastry.