Quebracho
82 miles from PFC—Rochester
152 miles from PFC—La Crosse
Quebracho has been supplying Argentine-style empanadas to both PFC stores since 2021. Quebracho’s owner and chef Belén Rodríguez moved to Minneapolis in 2012 from her native Argentina. She initially worked at a hospital in the Twin Cities as a translator. To relieve her homesickness, she started cooking the foods that she used to make with her grandmother back home.
“Quebracho” (kay-bracho) is the name of a particular hard wood used for grilling meats In Argentina. Belén’s father, a cattle broker, used the wood in the family weekend cookouts. Argentina has a long, storied history of cattle ranching, similar to North America’s myths of cowboy and vaquero.
In addition to the hospital work, Belén started cooking in Twin Cities’ restaurants and began selling her home-made empanadas at farmers markets. She discovered she enjoyed the work and the empanadas sold well. She made a couple dozen empanadas at a time – rolling out the dough, crimping the pastries by hand – but the demands of the farmers market soon had her making 15 dozen every week. Her business plan foresaw the gradual growth of the empanada and catering business, but that all changed with the pandemic. She was furloughed from her hospital job and the catering work she’d picked up all dried up. While she’d always planned to sell her wares to groceries eventually, with the advent of Covid19, she had to speed up her timeline and Quebracho empanadas made their debut at People’s Food Co-op.
Quebracho empanadas are made in St. Paul’s Minnesota Foodcrafters facility, a business incubator, in a kitchen shared with other Twin Cities small businesses. Quebracho currently makes three flavors of empanada—chicken, beef, and spinach with cheese. Because she works with meat, the sanitation is stringent. A USDA inspector visits every production day. The hardest part of setting up her business, Belén discovered, was getting the paperwork settled. It took 15 months to get the license from the government.
On the other hand, the State’s Agricultural Utility Research Institute was a great help getting Quebracho off the ground. The institute’s mission is to help bring value-added agricultural products to the Minnesota market. They supplied Belén with a range of expertise, including consulting on nutrition information, marketing, and manufacturing.
The most critical piece of the business puzzle, however, was supplied by Belén’s grandmother, Laia, who provided the recipes and inspiration for Quebracho’s empanadas. The spinach-cheese filling, for example, was based on Laia’s cannelloni. The chicken empanada filling was also from her grandmother’s recipe – using a béchamel sauce with lemon herbs and red bell pepper. “The region where I come from,” Belén says, “is not known for spicy food. Laia’s parents were Czech. Argentina has a very rich cuisine with mild, but flavorful food. Italian, Spanish cuisine in Mendoza Province and German cooking to the south. I grew up with Mediterranean and Eastern European flavors.”
Once Covid restrictions were eased, Belén traveled back to Argentina, bringing her empanadas back home for the ultimate test. Belén sat down with Laia for a meal and Laia declared the empanadas delicious. PFC shoppers are fortunate to have the opportunity to sample Argentine cuisine at the co-op. Quebracho makes a point of sourcing local ingredients. They add no sugar and use non-GMO flour.
The company currently has two employees and Belén is considering adding more products to the mix. “How would you feel about bite-sized empanadas for appetizers?” she asks. Yes, please.