Recipe - Pasteles

SOFRITO
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
One fourth cup Oil
2 teaspoon Salt

FILLING
2 tablespoon Shortening
1 pound Pork loin, cut into 1inch
pieces
One half pound Ham, chopped into small
cubes
3 tablespoon Chopped stuffed green olives
3 tablespoon Tomato paste, diluted in 2
tablespoons water
One fourth cup Sofrito

DOUGH
2 md Purple yautias (also called
malanga, a root vegetable)
1 lg Yuca (a.k.a. cassava or
manioc)
2 Green plantains
One fourth pound Pumpkin (or butternut
squash)
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 tablespoon Shortening
10 Banana leaves (if you can't
find then substitute dried
corn husks like are used
in tamales) (up to 12)

1. To make sofrito, blend cilantro, garlic, onion, peppers, oil, and salt
in a blender until smooth. Reserve One fourth 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 One fourth 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 One fourth 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 bananaleaf 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 EATL Digest 24 November 96

Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 00:13:30 EST

From: Felicia Pickering MNHAN063@SIVM.SI.EDU