The Kitchen Tool Andrew Zimmern Swears By For Better Hand Pies

TV food personality Andrew Zimmern may be best known for introducing his viewers to a broad array of unusual eats through his "Bizarre Food" series. However, he is also an accomplished chef with years of experience, which has taught him which kitchen items are a must-have and which ones are a hard pass.

When Zimmern is making hand pies, he gets the job done with a little help from a certain tool. As he explains on his website while detailing his recipe for blueberry hand pies, "I like to use a hand pie or empanada press for speed." Using a press not only allows him to go faster when making these tasty treats but also helps keep them more uniform in shape and size, which is important because it ensures they will cook or fry in the same amount of time.

If you haven't seen either, an empanada press and a pie press look different but perform a similar function. Each contains two parts that hold dough and can be folded together after a filling has been added. Hand pie presses are also called hand pie molds and come in many different shapes, such as circles and rectangles. There are even holiday-themed ones, such as pumpkins and Christmas trees, and others have decorative steam vents as part of their design.

Empanada presses, like the one shown above, are usually the same shape, with two half-circle parts that produce the traditional crescent form. Of the two types, the empanada press may be the most versatile. Not only is it good for empanadas and hand pies, but it's great for making a variety of dumplings as well. Try the press when making a batch of pierogi or use it to create some mezzelune, which is a filled crescent-shaped pasta.

If you want to give one of these gadgets a try, you can find empanada presses at major retailers, such as Walmart, and even in some supermarkets. Meanwhile, hand pie presses are sold in such cooking specialty stores as Williams Sonoma. Both items are readily available online, too. You can expect to pay around $7 to $8 for a single empanada press, and hand pie molds are often sold in sets that will cost around $10 to more than $20, depending on the retailer.

When it comes to Zimmern's methods for making great hand pies, it all starts with getting the dough right. Make sure to use chilled butter and use your hands to bring the flour and butter together. If you need to add a bit of water to bring the dough together, use only ice water, and to keep things cool, don't forget to refrigerate your dough for at least an hour before using it.

Zimmern is a fan of frying his hand pies. One thing to remember when frying is to make sure the oil is hot enough. He suggests heating the oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Another important part of frying hand pies successfully is to avoid overcrowding the pot. As a finishing touch, Zimmern likes to toss freshly fried pies in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. You'll want to do this while the pies are still hot so that the cinnamon sugar sticks to your pies. This would be a great addition to this fried apple hand pie recipe recipe in place of icing.