Salteña

The Salteña is an oven baked empanada (similar to a pastie) stuffed with beef, chicken, peas, potatoes, olives or eggs, and drowning in a sweet and sometimes spicy sauce. Legend has it the name comes from a woman from Salta (Salteña) who moved to Bolivia and cooked the most delicious empanadas. Paceña la Salteña is the best place to go for this popular breakfast treat.

The Salteñas are the Bolivian version of empanadas, small turnovers stuffed with meat, jelly broth, hard boiled egg and spices,  but unlike empanadas, these chubby football-shaped pastries are overflowing with brothy stew. They feature the geyser-like qualities of a soup dumpling, all wrapped up in a sweet and tender crust. One wrong bite will leave hot broth bursting through the pastry, both scalding your fingers and threatening to stain your reputation. Each salteña also has a surprise sliver of hard boiled egg and a black olive tucked into it before it's swaddled with pastry.

Making salteñas is a long, multistep process that might require you to clear out a weekend to tackle in stages.