- What's up guys.

My name is Lauren.

And I'm here today to do a food swap

to help celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.

Hispanic Heritage Month is important to me

cause I'm of Hispanic descent.

My mom is Panamanian and I think it's very important

for people to know their heritage and to celebrate it.

It's everything. You know.

It runs in my blood. It's in my veins.

I was blessed to be able to visit

and just wasn't all of the beauty that I saw there.

The personality and culture that you get

and to know that this is something that's part of me

is something that's very special to me.

(upbeat music)

Hi Candice. It's nice to officially meet you.

I heard we're going to be doing a little food swap here.

- It's good to meet you too. I'm a, I'm ready.

(light airy music)

I am from Jamaica. As you can see.

I grew up with obviously my own culture

and an appreciation for many other cultures.

Appreciation for the food, for their music

for just anything that makes them unique.

- So the recipe that I would be giving you

is a very important cultural special dish to Panama.

It's the Beef Empanada.

It's a very simple dish.

I don't know what your cooking level is

and I didn't want you to mess this up.

So we're just starting off easy.

So it's just fried dough with meat in it.

And I thought we'd go with the beef one

cause that's like kind of the traditional OG.

- Your Empanada,

I don't know if its gonna see my Jamaican Beef Patty

but we gon' see.

The Beef Patty is also a simple dish.

But you gotta make it with love.

- The ingredients is what makes it.

If you don't have the good ingredients,

if you don't have that seasoning,

it's not gonna be there. You know.

- That's right.

Panama is situated in the Caribbean.

I feel like we all are about the spices.

- That's so funny that you bring up spices, Candice.

Cause I'm actually gonna be dropping the ingredients off

at your door.

I'll make it a little easier on you. Its a little easier.

- That's so sweet. You know what?

I'ma do same thing for you.

- Well Candice, I look forward to this challenge.

I'm excited. Get some Empanadas, get some Beef Patties.

Let's do this.

(upbeat music)

- We're about to go to the grocery store,

pick up these Jamaican Beef Patty ingredients for Lauren,

drop them off at her house

and then see what she's really working with.

Can she make these Beef Patties?

We gon' see.

(upbeat music)

Alright. So that should be enough.

Organic Jamaican curry.

- Okay.

That was a much more of an adventure

than I thought it was going to be.

But I finally got all the ingredients

for Candice to make these bomb ass Beef Empanadas.

All my groceries right there.

So now am about to take them to her.

(upbeat music)

The challenge is on.

(upbeat music)

- So the day has finally come.

I'm here in my kitchen going to attempt

the Jamaican Beef Patty.

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of nervous.

Here you can see are the Ingredients

Candice has left me with.

These don't seem so unfamiliar

to what I'm normally used to working with.

So hopefully this process won't be so daunting.

But anyway, let's do this.

- Okay. So about to make this dough in the food processor.

Turn this on.

- Figure out this dough, cutting this butter

and knead the mixture

till it looks like a breadcrumb consistency.

- It's dough now.

- I don't have a rolling pin

to roll out these balls of dough

but I do have this water bottle

which I read will work fine.

Here we go.

Going to roll out these balls of dough.

(upbeat music)

- So got the ground beef, a pound of ground beef.

Next we need,

two tablespoons of soy sauce.

Gon' get that in there.

- Juicy beef. Juicy beef is important in this recipe.

- I got the beef cooked up,

the whole disc ready to put beef in, almost.

I'm heating up this oil in this pot.

It says I need to put two and a half inches

of oil in the pot.

- That's another difference.

So I don't know if it's always baked Jamaica Beef Pies

or if you are able to fry them

just depending on the preference.

I am asking Candice to fry.

So hopefully that's going well for her.

- I don't wanna get popped.

This isn't as easy as I thought it was.

I'm clearly not sealing the Empanadas right

because I'm putting them in the pot

and they're bursting open.

So I have two for Lauren so far.

But I got a lot more that I can try with.

- All of my patties are done.

I got to say it smells amazing.

Guess Candice will be the final judge.

I wasn't sure I could do that.

I did that. I did that.

I did that shit.

- I got four decent looking Empanadas.

Better go give them to Lauren outside. Lets go.

You got four good ones.

- Okay.

- Four decent ones. Decent and warm. We both tried.

- We did.

I have a lot of respect for Jamaicans.

- And I have a lot of respect for Panamanians.

- Me and Candice have completed our creations.

I made Beef Patty for her.

She made a Beef Empanada for me.

Here's a little visual here as you can see.

Candice, tell me about your experience.

How was making the Beef Empanada?

I was quite comfy in the beginning.

I was like, uh this is gonna be easy. This is gonna be easy.

Like how hard it to fry a pastry. I started frying them.

And then all of a sudden they got really fat

and they floating in the grease

and it was like popping everywhere

and I was running from the pot but I enjoyed it.

And there are a lot of similarities

in making the Patty for sure.

Some of the seasonings were similar

and some of the process were similar.

Like the end was definitely very different.

- We had a lot of similar seasonings

but you used them in the dough

whereas I used most of them in the meat.

(upbeat music)

Now is the big taste test. See how you did Candice.

I'll let the world see.

Here's a little visual representation.

Here we go.

(gentle music)

This good.

I mean, I think for your first time making these,

you nailed it. You nailed it.

- Yes!

(crowd cheering)

Let me show the dish off.

It's well sealed.

I think she didn't have any explosion problem with yours.

(gentle music)

Those good.

I haven't gotten to the meat yet though.

(both laugh loudly)

- I'll take it Candice, I'll take it.

- Not a bad first try.

- Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I think it's always important.

No matter what your culture heritage is to know about it

and to tell people, to express it,

to be proud of who you are and where you come from.

- Definitely got a lot more respect

for cooking different culture foods.

Always had respect for other cultures,

but I just thought

that I can make anything.

- It's fun and it's great to know about your heritage

and share that history and that information

and also learn about the differences.

Cause it's what makes us all unique.

- Yeah.

(upbeat music)