Pastel is the name given to different typical dishes of many countries of Hispanic or Portuguese origin.

Pastel in Brazil

In Brazil, pastel is a typical fast food Brazilian dish, consisting of thin pastry

Pastry

Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked products made from ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked products are called "pastries."...

 envelope wrapping with assorted fillings that is deep fried in vegetable oil. The result is a crispy, brownish pastry. The most common fillings are ground beef meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

, mozzarella

Mozzarella

Mozzarella is an Italian Traditional Speciality Guaranteed food product. The term is used for several kinds of Italian cheeses that are made using spinning and then cutting :...

 cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, heart of palm

Heart of palm

Heart of palm, also called palm heart, palmito, burglar's thigh, chonta, palm cabbage or swamp cabbage, is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees Heart of palm, also called palm heart, palmito, burglar's thigh, chonta, palm cabbage or swamp cabbage, is a...

, catupiry

Catupiry

Catupiry is one of the most popular "requeijão" brands in Brazil. It was developed by the Italian immigrant Mario Silvestrini in the state of Minas Gerais in 1911. The name derives from the native Tupi word meaning "excellent"....

 cream cheese, chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

 meat and small shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

s. There are also sweet fillings like guava jam

Goiabada

Goiabada is a popular dessert throughout the Portuguese-speaking countries of the world, dating back to the colonial days in Brazil, where guavas were used as a substitute for the quinces used to make marmelada . Abundance of sugar and slave labour were crucial for its confection, in large...

 with Minas cheese

Minas cheese

Minas cheese is a type of cheese that has been traditionally produced in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. It comes in three varieties, named Frescal , Meia-cura and Curado...

, banana, and chocolate, but these are not so common. The pastel is classified in Brazilian cuisine as a salgado (salty snack). Pastel is traditionally sold on the streets or in fast food shops known as "pastelarias". It is popularly said to have originated when Japanese

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 immigrants adapted Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 fried wontons

Wonton

Not to be confused with WantonA wonton is a type of dumpling commonly found in a number of Chinese cuisines.-Filling:...

 to sell as snacks at weekly street markets. Italian-Brazilians have said that the Brazilian dishes pastel and fogazza originated from fried calzone

Calzone

A calzone Italian: , "stocking" or "trouser") is a turnover that originates from Italy. It is shaped like a semicircle, made of dough folded over and filled with ingredients common to pizza....

s. It is possible however that pastel originated from India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n samosa

Samosa

A samosa is a stuffed, deep fried,snack that is very popular in the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, North Africa and South Africa...

s when the dish became part of the Portuguese cuisine

Portuguese cuisine

Portuguese cuisine is characterised by rich, filling and full-flavored dishes and is closely related to Mediterranean cuisine. The influence of Portugal's former colonial possessions is also notable, especially in the wide variety of spices used. These spices include piri piri and black pepper, as...

.

Pastel in Portugal

A pastel in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 may refer to several types of dessert

Dessert

In cultures around the world, dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food. The word comes from the French language as dessert and this from Old French desservir, "to clear the table" and "to serve." Common Western desserts include cakes, biscuits,...

s or hors d'œuvres popular in Portugal. These include the very famous pastel de bacalhau and the pastel de nata

Pastel de nata

A pastel de nata , or pastel de Belém is a Portuguese egg tart pastry. They are common in Portugal, the Lusosphere — Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, Timor-Leste, Goa, and Macau — and countries with significant Portuguese populations, such as Canada,...

.

Pastel in Spain

Pastel is typically a Spanish word that means cake

Cake

Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...

, but can refer to a very different dishes in other Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

 countries.

Pastel in Puerto Rico

In Puerto Rican pastel is a dish which includes diced pork with olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

s, caper

Caper

Capparis spinosa, the caper bush, is a perennial winter-deciduous species that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. A caper is also the pickled bud of this plant...

s, raisin

Raisin

Raisins are dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world. Raisins may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking and brewing...

s, chickpea

Chickpea

The chickpea is a legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae...

s, and sweet peppers. This mixture is centered in dough made mainly of green bananas with a small portion of plantain

Plantain

Plantain is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa. The fruit they produce is generally used for cooking, in contrast to the soft, sweet banana...

, yautía, and potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

. The dough is tinted with annatto

Annatto

Annatto, sometimes called roucou or achiote, is a derivative of the achiote trees of tropical regions of the Americas, used to produce a yellow to orange food coloring and also as a flavoring...

 oil. It is wrapped in palm leaf, tied with string, boiled and later served with arroz con gandules

Rice and peas

Rice and Peas also called Moros de guandules con coco in the Dominican Republic.-Dominican Republic:Moros de guandules con coco is a traditional coconut rice and pigeon pea dish served on Christmas. Moros in Dominican cuisine is very similar to Jamaican rice and peas...

(yellow-rice with pigeon pea

Pigeon pea

The pigeon pea , also known as tropical green pea, toor dāl or arhar dāl , ತೊಗರಿ ಬೇಳೆ kadios , or Congo pea or gungo pea , pois Congo , gandul , gunga pea, or no-eye pea, [Cajanus...

s).

Pastel in the Philippines

In the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, pastel may refer to any (usually chicken or meat) casserole dish baked in a pie crust.

In the province of Camiguin

Camiguin

Camiguin is an island province of the Philippines located in the Bohol Sea, about off the northern coast of Misamis Oriental in Mindanao. It is the second-smallest province both in population and land area after Batanes...

, however, it refers specifically to pastel de Camiguín

Pastel de Camiguín

Pastel de Camiguín is a Filipino sweet filled bun originating in the province of Camiguin. The filling may consist of yema, purple yam, or makapuno, among others....

, a soft, sweet filled bun.