Street Staple · Fried Fish Turnover

Panades

🥟

Photo coming soon

The name is a shortened form of 'empanada', and Belizean panades are made with corn masa rather than the wheat dough used in much of Latin America.

Panades are small, half-moon turnovers made from corn masa dough, filled with flaked fish (or beans) and deep-fried until crisp. Vendors sell them hot in paper bags, doused with an onion-and-habanero pepper sauce.

Why it's made this way: Panades are Belize's take on the Latin American empanada, made from two things always on hand near the sea, corn masa and fresh fish, and turned into a cheap, fried, easily portable snack sold nationwide.