I made homemade Saltenas today, and followed the recipe exactly. It is a meat pie. You make your own dough, fill it, then bake for 5-10 minutes on 500 . I can’t get my dough a nice brown color, even if egg wash. Is there a trick to getting dough a nice light brown?
Since the pie is savory, there probably isn’t sugar in the filling or crust which will give the carmelized color.
You could try giving it a couple of minutes under the broiler to make the crust lightly brown.
do you have the seam up?
Maybe use just the yolk of the egg for the egg wash?
Since I found the frozen Goya discos I rarely make my own dough. Then I have time to make a couple of different fillings.
http://www.goya.com/english/product_subcategory/frozen-foods/discos
What kind of oven do you have? Have you checked it with an oven thermometer to make sure it is up to temperature? What rack are you cooking them on? Usually the top racks encourage browning.
I quickly looked up a recipe and it mentioned brushing them with annatto butter, which colrs things yellow
Another recipe says:
Cook for 20-30 minutes in 550 degree Farenheit oven until golden brown.
Maybe you’re not cooking them long enough and temp can be raised.
https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1025616
Is your oven rack too high or too low? Often it’s recommended for the rack to be about 2/3 from the top.
My oven will only go to 500 and yes the seam is up. My will look into that annato butter. I did use egg wash.
This meat pie is filled with juice, and can’t be in the oven more than 9 minutes of will start leaking, the dough is ony 1/2 cm thick.
I might try setting it higher…but it does seem like there should be something else in the dough or spread on it.
Thanks all for helping out with suggestions! I have filling left and will try in a week or so again.
I’m also going to check out the Goya…how thin are those?
About 1/8". I roll them out a little thinner. I use the plain. I tried the annatto one time and didn’t care for them.
You can also use a whole milk wash - the fat in the milk will help with browning.
Did you put a little slit to let the steam out? Nine minutes doesn’t sound long enough to promote browning.
It would be hard to get something brown in nine minutes. You could put a little sugar in the dough, but it would still need more time. Have you got a broiler? Maybe just run it under a broiler for a bit.
Nine minutes doesn’t sound long enough to cook this dough, let alone brown it. Seems to me the issue is figuring out how to cook it for longer.
Do you cook the pie crust first, then add the filling?
The way this is traditionally made is with extremely hot, probably stone ovens…hotter than we can get in our ovens. The filling is made with unflavored gelatin that has been in the frig for 24 hours. When it’s cooked, the gelatin melts, so the inside of the pie is juicy. If left too long, the dough sort of bursts and the juice leaks out…or the dough absorbs the juice. That’s why you want to cook very hot and quickly. Why I cant get my oven past 500 I’m not sure, I thought they all did.
The first time I made these, I baked at 450 for 15 minutes. Yes, they were much bowner, but all the juice was absorbed and the dough too thick because of it.
You can’t cook the dough first as you put the filing inside, then wrap it around the filing and twist the cough closed.
My broiler is part of my oven, so I think what I’d do is get my oven up to 500 degrees then turn on the broiler, that would probably get it even hotter. You could also try using a pizza stone.
I think I’ll give that a try…I used to have a pizza stone years ago and hot rid of it.