"It's like an empanada, but on bread." DeepL translates this as "Es como una empanada, pero de pan." Not "en pan" or "encima de pan", or even "con pan". Any idea why this would be "de"? What other things follow this pattern? Thanks!
This actually took longer to answer than I thought because so much of what I was thinking is just based on instinct and what I've seen
I think it's a limitation of the translation
First, empanada is hard to translate properly because empanado/a means "breaded", or it refers to something that is covered with bread or has bread on all sides like a dumpling, a pot pie, etc. All can come out as empanado/a
Secondly, I personally would not write it that way because empanada de pan kind of sounds like either you're specifically talking about the dough or that the bread is a star here. My instinct is like that reads as if you're talking about pan as an ingredient... OR I could maybe see it as meaning "made with wheat flour" rather than corn masa
Because third, de (algo) is typically how you describe food where it's the main star... like helado de cereza means "cherry ice cream" like that's the main taste; and if you said helado con cereza(s) "ice cream with cherries" I would assume that they were either mixed after the ice cream was made or there's a cherry on top
A lot of things will list the main ingredient that way like sopa de tomate "tomato soup" rather than a "soup with tomato", or caldo de res "beef broth/soup"
If I said empanada de pollo I would think "okay it's an empanada and the main ingredient is chicken", rather than something like empanada de cebolla y queso "cheese and onion empanada", or una tortilla de jamĂłn y queso "ham and cheese omelet"
(But this does sometimes depend; I've seen arepa con queso more than I've seen arepa de queso but I think both make sense? And some specific foods are more one specific phrase like arroz con leche is literally "rice with milk" but it's the standard expression for "rice pudding")
Me personally the way I'm reading it is that you're trying to say that it tastes like the filling of an empanada [el relleno is "filling"], but on bread
In which case I would say es como (el relleno de) una empanada sobre pan because sobre "on/on top of" is more generally how you talk about sandwiches on a menu
You can also then specify some people say like sobre pan de trigo "on wheat bread", so a menu might be like pavo y queso sobre pan de trigo "turkey and cheese on wheat bread" or un reuben sobre pan de centeno "a reuben on rye bread"
This may be my own personal understanding, but when it comes to food de + algo is like "that's the main flavor", con + algo makes it seem like something comes with it or it accompanies it... And I'm not sure I would use encima "on top of"
encima makes it seem like it was placed on top, rather than "it is on" the way like una cereza encima del postre "a cherry on top of the dessert" or con una cereza encima "with a cherry on top"... it feels more like I am actively pointing out its position, and with food specifically it reads as "this is a garnish" to me but that could just be me
So if I saw empanada con pan I would think "this is an empanada and they're giving me bread too", but if I saw empanada de pan my instinct would be thinking it's like a Thanksgiving bread stuffing inside of fried dough
