Add flour and salt to a bowl, whisk together. Add the butter, tossing to separate the pieces and coat them with flour. Working by hand, pinch the pieces of butter into the flour, forming a good amount of larger flat pieces the size of a nickel or so as well as smaller bits.

Mix egg and milk together. Measure 1/3 a cup of the ice water and a tablespoon of vinegar and add to egg mixture. Very quickly (you don’t want to coddle the milk with the vinegar) drizzle the egg/milk/vinegar/water mixture over the flour while tossing with a fork until mostly incorporated.

Turn out on a counter and rub across the mixture three times with the heel of your hand, smooshing it as you go. By now, the pastry should be mostly coming together with a few dry areas. Work on those areas by pinching and pushing them into the dough. If necessary add a few sprinkles of water to moisten. The dough should “feel” fairly dry and there may be a few bits that aren’t well incorporated. You should see chunks of butter, throughout.

Gather the dough together into a pile, gently flatten it into a squarish shape, wrap it in parchment paper or plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour. Overnight is fine, too, and wrapped tightly, the dough can be refrigerated for a day or two or frozen for 1 month. If refrigerated more than an hour, leave the dough at room temperature for 5 to 20 minutes before rolling out.

On a floured work surface, roll out the dough, from the center to edges, 1/8″ thick. Cut into five-inch rounds. You’ll need to reroll the scraps, but to keep them tender, layer them on top of one another, cover with a clean damp cloth and let the rest a few minutes. You can fill the others as you wait. Then just roll the scraps out; the dough should stick together just fine.

Cover the rolled out rounds with a damp cloth as you fill the Empanadas.

For filling and baking, please see my Chipotle Pulled Pork Empanada post.