Pasteles de Yuca

Friends,

For virtually every Puerto-Rican family, holiday food always consists of pasteles. However, for those of you who are familiar with pasteles, you know that a lot of work goes into the preparation of this holiday meal. While pasteles are typically made with plantains, squash, yautia, and green bananas, an easier and less cumbersome recipe consists of making the pasteles out of yuca. What is more, there is no grating required.

Here is my take on pasteles de yuca.
1 Package of pork shoulder chops
1 Boullion cube
Adobo to taste
4 sprigs of Cilantro (about)
2 Garlic cloves
2 medium sweet peppers (ajies) - these are small sweet peppers found where the cilantro is.
Dried oregano to taste
1 Olives
2 1.5 oz packs of raisens
1 small can of garbanzo beans
1 tablespoon of tomato paste or 1 small can of tomato sauce
1 package of frozen grated yuca (found in the freezer section with other Spanish frozen foods)
1/2 of a medium sized acorn squash
3 medium sized potatoes
1/3 cup of achiote (annato seeds)
1 roll of Pasteles paper
1 roll of string for tying pasteles

Start by emptying your yuca mixture into a large bowl then peal your potatoes and put your squash and potatoes to boil together. You can actually leave the skin on the squash and remove it after it boils and cools off. When the potatoes and squash are boiled, place them in a bowl (not the yuca bowl) and mash. After they are well mashed, place them in the yuca bowl. Next, take the pork shoulder chops off the bone and reserve the bone. Once all of the meat is removed from the bones, boil the bones with the boullion cube. While that is boiling, take your meat and cut up into small pieces and season with adobo. In a mortar, place your cilantro, pealed garlic cloves, and two sweet peppers, season with a little oregano and pound away until your mixture forms a green paste. Season the meat with this grean paste. Put a little corn oil in a frying pan. enough to circle the bottom of the pan. Once the oil gets hot, place your seasoned meat in the pan and add your olives, raisens, and garbanzo beans. Cover your pan with a lid until the meat begins to brown. Once the meat begins to brown, add a tablespoon of tomato paste or a small can of tomato sauce. Cover and allow to cook. If meat begins to dry, add a little water to loosen up.

After your meat is cooked heat up about a half cup of corn oil and add the achiote. Allow the achiote to heat until your oil turns a bright orange. Do not let this burn.

Open your paper keeping all of the sheets together so that your mixtures do not seep through. Season your yuca mix with adobo and the pork stock that you prepared with the pork bones. Add a little bit of the achiote mixture and a little bit of your meat juices and mix well.

On a pasteles sheet, place a little bit (a little less than a tablespoon) onto the middle of your pasteles paper. The middle of your paper should have an orange blotch on it. In that orange blotch, place a large ricespoon serving of the yuca mixture, and in the middle of that, place a little of the meat mixture. Then take your paper and begin to wrap your pasteles. Have both ends of your paper meet, make a long thin fold, then fold over. You should have a long crease along the middle of your pastel. Fold over your two ends and set aside. Prepare another pastel, and when you have two of them ready, tie them together with your string like a gift package. Ill try to get a picture posted so you can see what this is supposed to look like. Those of you who are familiar with pasteles should not have a problem, but those of you who are not familiar with pasteles are not likely to know what I'm talking about.

After your pasteles are wrapped and tied, you can put them to boil in a pot of water. Be sure to add some salt to the water, and let the pasteles boil for about 1 hour. This recipe should render a little over a dozen pasteles. You can freeze the pasteles you don't plan to immediately eat and boil them when you're ready.

For me, this is Christmas. If you wish to make traditional pasteles, then instead of using yuca, take out your graters and grate 6 green plantains, 4 green bananas and 3 yautias in addition to the potatoes and squash instructions I stated above. All other instruction remain the same. The yuca pasteles are just as tasty and much less work.

Buen provecho!