Pasteles

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 bunch Cilantro, stems removed
6 Cloves garlic
1 large 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
¼ cup Oil
2 teaspoons Salt
2 tablespoons Shortening
1 pounds Pork loin, cut into 1-inch pieces
½ pounds Ham, chopped into small cubes
3 tablespoons Chopped stuffed green olives
3 tablespoons Tomato paste, diluted in 2 tablespoons water
¼ cup Sofrito
2 mediums Purple yautias (also called malanga, a root vegetable)
1 large Yuca (a.k.a. cassava or manioc)
2 Green plantains
¼ pounds 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)

Directions

SOFRITO

FILLING

DOUGH

1. To make sofrito, blend cilantro, garlic, onion, peppers, oil, and salt in a blender until smooth. Reserve ¼ 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 ¼ 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 ⅓ cup dough on leaf and spread into a rectangular shape about ¼ 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@...>

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