| CATEGORY |
CUISINE |
TAG |
YIELD |
| Grains, Meats, Vegetables |
|
|
1 |
Servings |
INGREDIENTS
| 1 |
bn |
Cilantro, stems removed |
| 6 |
|
Cloves garlic |
| 1 |
lg |
Onion, roughly chopped |
| 20 |
|
Tiny aji dulce chilies (also called rocotillo peppers or cachucha, this is a tiny chili pepper that looks like a pattypan squash and looks hot and smells hot, but is actually as mild as a bell pepper) |
| 3 |
|
Green peppers, seeded and roughly chopped |
| 1/4 |
c |
Oil |
| 2 |
ts |
Salt |
| 2 |
tb |
Shortening |
| 1 |
lb |
Pork loin, cut into 1-inch pieces |
| 1/2 |
lb |
Ham, chopped into small cubes |
| 3 |
tb |
Chopped stuffed green olives |
| 3 |
tb |
Tomato paste, diluted in 2 tablespoons water |
| 1/4 |
c |
Sofrito |
| 2 |
md |
Purple yautias (also called malanga, a root vegetable) |
| 1 |
lg |
Yuca (a.k.a. cassava or manioc) |
| 2 |
|
Green plantains |
| 1/4 |
lb |
Pumpkin (or butternut squash) |
| 1 |
ts |
Paprika |
| 1 |
tb |
Shortening |
| 10 |
|
Banana leaves (if you can't find then substitute dried corn husks like are used in tamales) (up to 12) |
INSTRUCTIONS
SOFRITO
FILLING
DOUGH
1. To make sofrito, blend cilantro, garlic, onion, peppers, oil, and salt
in a blender until smooth. Reserve 1/4 cup for this recipe and refrigerate
or freeze the remainder in a tightly covered container (it will keep for
several months).
2. For filling, fry meat in hot shortening until brown. Add olives, tomato
paste, and 1/4 cup sofrito. Cook on low heat for almost 1 hour, then set
aside to cool slightly. If all liquid has evaporated from meat, add a few
more spoonfuls oil.
3. While meat is cooking, prepare dough. Peel yautias and yuca with a
small, sharp knife. Grate with plantains and pumpkin or squash into a
bowl. Add paprika and shortening and mix to form a soft dough.
4. To form pasteles, lay a banana leaf flat and cover with a little oil
from meat mixture to soften the surface. Place 1/3 cup dough on leaf and
spread into a rectangular shape about 1/4 inch thick. Put 2 to 3
tablespoons meat mixture on the left side of dough, then fold over the
right side to enclose dough. Continue folding the leaf, tucking under the
ends to make a neat, rectangular package. With kitchen string tie together
2 banana-leaf packets like a present.
5. Boil packages (this is what the recipe says but I assume they mean more
like simmer, not hard boil) in a large pot of salted water for 45 minutes,
making sure that they are always covered by water. Pasteles are done when
the leaf peels easily from the dough inside. Serves 10 to 12
Recipe is from _The Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook_.
Posted to EAT-L Digest 24 November 96
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 00:13:30 EST
From: Felicia Pickering <MNHAN063@SIVM.SI.EDU>
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