Tag Archives: yautia

Yautía Fritters

27 Dec

I learned to make these fritters from Mili at the Yoga Center. She was always a champion of having something fried in our Saturday menus…

I have always been a great fan of anything fried, but to be honest, never made these yautía fritters myself. So why in the world did I want to include them as part of a Cooking Class menu??? Beats me…

So I had to prepare fast, real fast to make a recipe that I could replicate time and time again, and that it tasted as good as Mili’s always did. Thank goodness yautías and most viandas are on sale during Xmas because they’re used in so many typical recipes.

Frituras Yautia - INgredients

Here are the results… I hope you enjoy them as much as the cooking class students did.

Frituras Yautia 3

YAUTÍA FRITTERS

2 medium sized yautías, peeled and cut into small pieces
1 green banana, peeled and cut into small pieces
3 tbs sofrito
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and cut into smaller pieces
1 tsp salt
1 tbs olive oil
Sprinkling of paprika
Frying oil – Grapeseed oil or Canola Oil
  1. Add all the ingredients in a food processor and blend until you create a puree.
  2. With a spatula, scrape off the sides of the bowl of the food processor to make sure all the mix is evenly pureed.
  3. Using a skillet with about ½ inch of oil over medium high heat, fry the fritters creating small mounds with 2 spoons.
  4. When they’re golden brown on both sides, transfer them to a plate with paper towel to soak up any extra oil.

Processing Frituras yautia

These fritters are easy… and delicious. You can make them in a cinch. Perfect for an impromptu parranda. They taste like an alcapurria without the filling.

Masa Frituras Yautia

When we were making them at the cooking class, Angie told me if we had left a bit of the soy filling from the yuca pastelón, we could’ve demonstrated how this masa works for an alcapurrias too.

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Frozen Vianda

9 Aug

I mentioned you on my Yuca Alcapurrias post that if you did not have the equipment, muscle or simply, like me, you’re too lazy to grind yuca all by yourself… you can certainly use frozen ground masa already available at supermarkets.

I visited the supermarket the other day with camera on hand to show you the different kinds of masas available for you already…

You see, on the left,  you have masa for alcapurrias and/or pasteles… you also have ground yautía by itself which would be delicious for these yautía fritters Mili and I used to make at the Center. You also have masa made from green banana, great to make little dumplings and boil into a soup.

In this other photo, you can see the ground yuca in the center… flanked by yautía and green banana. These are just made from another company.

These are available in all major supermarkets in Puerto Rico… but I have also seen these in supermarkets in Miami.

If you rather make boiled yuca to eat with Cuban mojo, there’s also convenient yuca cut into pieces ready to boil. This is the kind I usually buy when I need to get my Cuban fix at home. At the Yoga Center we peel yucas. At home, I just boil the frozen stuff!!!!

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Potato and Yautía Pastelón

24 Sep

Recently my grandma was in the hospital… and when this happens, my mom stays with her all the time and I become the official vegetarian food delivery service.

This is one of the recipes I made for my mom while she was staying with my grandma at the hospital.  It was easy to make, nutritious and delicious.

 

POTATO AND YAUTÍA PASTELÓN

2 medium red potatoes, chopped into 2” pieces
1 medium white yautía, chopped into 2” pieces
1 broccoli stalk, both florets and stem, chopped into small pieces
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
½ onion, chopped
1 tbs sofrito
2 tbs horseradish
3 tbs butter, divided
1 tbs parmesan cheese
1 handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
Sal t and Pepper to taste
About 1 tbs of olive oil
Canola Oil Spray

 

  1. In a medium saucepan, I place the chopped potato and yautía pieces along with the broccoli stems but not the florets.  I add water until it comes up halfway.  Add salt to taste, cover and bring to a quick boil over medium heat.  I usually lower the heat when I see some steam coming out of the cover to avoid the water to completely evaporate.  Pieces are usually cooked after 15 minutes. 
  2. Right before you turn off the heat from the potato/yautía… place the broccoli florets inside the same pot so it steams with the steam from the pot.  Cover immediately, wait about 15 seconds and turn off the heat on that burner.  Broccoli florets will be cooked thoroughly in about 5 minutes.
  3. While the potatoes and yautías cook, we prepare the filling… in a medium skillet over medium heat we add olive oil and sofrito.  Sauté for a few minutes.  Add the chopped onion and sauté some more until the onion softens.   Add the thawed corn and cooked broccoli florets. Season with salt and pepper and mix well so all the flavors mix in.  Set aside.
  4. Drain all the remaining water from the cooked potatoes, yautías and broccoli stems and return to the same pot.  Add butter, olive oil, horseradish and parmesan cheese.  You could add a handful of shredded mozzarella cheese too if you’d like.  Mash it all together until smooth.
  5. In a medium-sized glass baking dish sprayed with Canola Oil, add about half of the mashed potato/yautía mix.  Spread it out evenly across the bottom.  Add the corn/broccoli filling on top of this layer.  Now cover with the remaining potato/yautía mash.  Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella cheese.
  6. Bake in oven at 450F for about 10-12 minutes, until the cheese on top melts and becomes golden brown.  The pastelón per se is all cooked so you’re just looking for a nice crusty top.

 

Serve alongside a crispy green salad…  This is a great potluck dish or to take to someone when they’re “under the weather”.

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Veggie Sancocho

19 Nov

Today we celebrate the Discovery of Puerto Rico…  or the day Christopher Columbus landed on the Island of Puerto Rico for the first time in 1493.  Because if you ask the Taínos who already lived on the Island, they already knew Boriquén existed and they needed no discovery of any kind.

I wanted to commemorate this day with a very Puerto Rican dish – SANCOCHO.  The name is not that pretty, but it tastes awesome.  It’s a stew/soup of many root vegetables, or as we call them locally, viandas.  It’s great for those rainy days in November…  as we thankfully say goodbye to the hurricane season, which fortunately has left Puerto Rico unscathed this year.

I’ll be honest, when I make this dish, I’ve made it for 40 people at a time… so bear with me when I try to scale the measurements for something more in tune with a regular family of 4. 

 sancocho

SANCOCHO

3 medium potatoes, can be russet, red skin, Yukon gold, cleaned and cubed
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut in ¼ inch rounds
1 medium yautía blanca, peeled and cubed
1 medium yautía lila, peeled and cubed
1 small malanga (taro root), peeled and cubed
2 celery stalks, cleaned and sliced thin
1 small onion, diced
1 small bell pepper, diced
1 corn on the cob
¼ head of white cabbage
2 tomatoes, peeled and cut in small dice
2 tbs sofrito
1 tbs olive oil
1 vegetable bouillon cube
2 bay leaves
½ bunch cilantro (optional), chopped
1 tsp Herbamare seasoning (optional)
1 tbs Salt, divided
10-15 turns of the mill of Freshly Cracked Ground Pepper, divided
Water
Avocado slices, for garnish at the end

 

  1. In the largest stock pot you have, start by adding the olive oil, sofrito, onion, bell pepper, celery and bouillon cube.  Smash the cube so that it melts in with the rest of the ingredients.  Allow for the celery, onions and peppers to soften.  Add the tomatoes and let those juices mix together. Season with a little salt and pepper.
  2. Add the viandas – potatoes, carrots, yautías, , malanga – and the cabbage.  Mix well with the ingredients already on the pot.  Add water until covering 1 inch over the contents of the pot.  Add the bay leaves, the chopped cilantro leaves, the Herbamare seasoning, some additional salt and pepper.  Taste to check the water is well seasoned. Cover.  Let it come to a boil and simmer at medium heat for about 30-40 minutes.
  3. Check the pot every so often and move the sancocho around, to avoid the bottom from scorching.  When you reach the 20 minute mark, add the pieces of corn on the cob.  Cover again and let it boil for the last 10 – 20 minutes.  Make sure the root vegetables are fork tender.
  4. Turn off the stove and let the sancocho finish cooking with the residual heat from the pot and stove.  Allow it to rest and mellow for about 20 minutes.  The soup will maintain hot for about 1 hour, no problem.
  5. When you’re ready to eat, garnish on top with slices of avocado… and if you want, you can drizzle a squirt of lime juice too.

 

This is a stew perfect for cold and rain days.  This is what we almost always eat after a few days of fasting at a Yoga Retreat.  It’s full of vitamins and nutrition and will even “revive the dead”.  There is a lot of ingredients, but it’s all chop and dump…  not that difficult.   

You can eat it with plain whole-grain rice…

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