I still had a pound of frozen ground deer meet from my hunter friend. I decided to challenge myself a little and make empanadas. I used the dough from this recipe which incorporates some masa and chicken fat (other rarely used pantry ingredients). This made the dough a little harder to work with as it was prone to tearing.

For the filling, I winged it. I minced a red bell pepper, sauteed that with the meat, and added some chipotle in adobo sauce to form a sloppy joe like filling. I was able to practice forming and crimping the empanadas. After frying, I saved the prettiest ones for my friend in the freezer.

The empanadas were good on their own, but the green sauce from the above empanada recipe really completed the experience. The acid from the limes cut through the gamey flavors. The one thing I didn't like was how much oil the dough absorbed. You could really tell when reheating them from frozen, because it would come bubbling out.