Puerto rican pasteles ingredients: Pasteles Puertorriqueños (Root Vegetable Meat Patties) –

Puerto Rican Pasteles Recipe – Hispanic Food Network

Pastelles ~ Puerto Rican Tamale Recipe Card

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In Puerto Rico, it’s a tradition to serve Pasteles at Christmas time. Like their Mexican cousins the Tamale, the Pastele is made with meat stuffing. Unlike the Mexican Tamale, the masa is made from yautía and plantain masa and wrapped in banana leaves.

This recipe calls for pork shoulder, sweet peppers, onion, recaito sofrito, garlic, adobo, oregano, and bay leaf seasoning. This filling is wrapped in masa made from the yautía malanga root, plantains, garlic, recaito sofrito, and achiote oil. It is then wrapped in banana leaves, folded up, tied up, and boiled in water.

Although this Puerto Rican recipe is time-consuming and labor-intensive, it’s more than worth the effort to make.

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Puerto Rican Pasteles

Recipe Author : David Taylor

Unlike Mexican tamales, pasteles are boiled and not steamed.

Please Rate this Recipe

4.34 from 3 votes

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Prep Time 1 hr

Cook Time 1 hr

Straining Time 3 hrs

Total Time 5 hrs

Course Main Dish

Cuisine Puerto Rican

Servings 20 Pasteles

For the Pork Filling:

• 2 lbs pork shoulder diced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 small sweet peppers chopped
• 1 small onion chopped
• 2 tbsp recaito Puerto Rican sofrito sauce
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 1 tbsp adobo seasoning
• 1 tbsp ground oregano
• 1 bay leaf

For the Masa Dough:

• 4 lbs yautía malanga, peeled
• 6 green plantains or substitute yautía and plantains with yuca
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 2 tbsp recaito
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp achiote oil or more to reach desired consistency

For the Wrapping:

• 1 tbsp achiote oil
• 20 10- banana leaves 10-by-5-inch
• 20 parchment paper 8-by-4-inch rectangles
• 20 18- inch pieces kitchen string
• salt for boiling water

Make the Pork Filling

• Brown the diced pork in the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet.

• Add the sweet peppers, chopped onion, recaito, garlic, adobo, oregano, and bay leaf, stirring well. Cook until the pork is no longer pink inside. Remove the bay leaf from the mixture and set aside to cool.

Make the Masa Dough

• In a large bowl, grate the peeled yautía and the green plantains (or cleaned and peeled yuca). Use disposable gloves, as uncooked plantains will stain your hands and kitchen towels.

• Blend the grated roots in a food processor until creamy.

• Place the masa over a cheesecloth or a fine-mesh sieve for at least 3 hours so the excess moisture drips out.

• Once the masa is ready, stir in the garlic, recaito, salt, and enough of the achiote oil to moisten the dough and add a little color. You are now ready to assemble and wrap the pasteles.

Wrap the Pasteles

• For each pastel, lay out a piece of parchment paper, topped with one piece of banana leaf. Brush achiote oil in a rectangular shape on the center of the banana leaf.

• Spread 1 1/2 to 2 spoonfuls of masa onto the center of the leaf.

• Add one spoonful of pork filling and top with another spoonful of masa.

• Bring the edges of the banana leaf over the top of the pork filling. Then repeat with the other side of the banana leaf so that the masa completely covers the top of the filling.

• Bring the edges of the banana leaf together and fold down over the top.

• Fold the edges of the banana leaf underneath the package.

• Bring the top and bottom edges of the parchment paper over the top and fold or roll down the edges to make a horizontal seam. Tuck the ends under.

• Tie with a string in both directions. At this point, you can freeze any pasteles you are not going to cook and eat right away. Place them in resealable bags, date, label, and freeze.

Cook the Pasteles

• Bring a stock pot of salted water to a boil. Place the pasteles in the water, making sure they are submerged. Reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour.

• Using tongs, remove the pasteles from the boiling water and place them on a plate. Carefully cut the string of each with kitchen scissors and very carefully open the banana leaves and parchment paper. Place the pastel on a serving plate.

Keyword Pasteles

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History of the Pastele

In Puerto Rico, the holiday season starts after Thanksgiving and goes through Christmas and Three Kings Day to the Octavas and Octavitas, a religious observance that extends the celebration through mid-January. It seems like pasteles are always a part of each celebration. The Fiestas de la Calle de San Sebastián caps it all off over the course of three days in Old San Juan. Friends will show up at loved ones’ houses singing and playing music, like Christmas caroling but with maracas, güiros and cuatros.

It’s common during these celebrations to make large batches of pasteles. Similar to tamales, pasteles are a combination of grated green unripe bananas called guineos, plantains and either yautia or yuca, blended to make a masa seasoned with achiote oil. The filling — pork, ham or chicken simmered in a sofrito of peppers and onions, then mixed with garbanzos, olives, capers and raisins — is tucked into the prepared dough and wrapped in plantain leaves. Once the pasteles are filled and wrapped, they can be frozen, then steamed or boiled just before serving so they’re ready to welcome anyone who may turn up at your door.

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How to Make Puerto Rican Pasteles

I thoroughly believe that the best Christmas traditions are those that combine delicious hometown flavors with family bonding time, and in my Abuela’s Puerto Rican household, the epitome of such were her famous pasteles de guineo. These small meat pies — made with ingredients traditional to the Caribbean island such as green guineo (bananas) and a spice called annatto — are commonly made in bulk in the days before Christmas. At the end of the days-long cooking process, Puerto Rican pasteles are wrapped in banana leaves and secured with cooking twine in such a way that they resemble small, edible gifts. And as much as my cousins and I loved unraveling each individual “present” during and beyond December, the best part of our pasteles tradition was the actual act of coming together as a family to make them.

What Is The Difference Between Tamales And Pasteles?

If you’re unfamiliar with Puerto Rican pasteles, you may have initially envisioned a sweet treat since the Spanish word “pastel” translates to “pie” in English, and is often used in reference to dessert by many Spanish-speaking cultures. In Puerto Rico, however, pasteles’ are far from sweet. These individual pies are savory, filled with meat, and are meticulously spiced from the sofrito-marinated pork filling to the annatto oil-infused banana masa around it. Puerto Rican pasteles are best explained as cousins to Mexican tamales in that they are both meat-filled masa pies wrapped in natural leaves, but the ingredients and spices used in pasteles differ entirely from those used in tamales.

For one, the masa in Puerto Rican pasteles is made from mashed green bananas (known as guineos) and root vegetables, such as pumpkin and yautía, or taro root. The slightly sweet and starchy vegetables used in pasteles are traditionally grated and mashed by hand, then seasoned with homemade annatto oil, pork broth, and adobo before being layered with slow-cooked pork, all atop a sheet of natural plantain leaves.

Where Do Puerto Rican Pasteles Originate?

Puerto Rican pasteles originated from the island’s enslaved African ancestors who transformed the limited supply of locally-grown vegetables and meat they were given into flavorful pockets of succulent pork and silky masa, all wrapped in local plantain leaves. This is just one of many dishes our African ancestors imparted on Puerto Rican culture and cuisine. Today, they are made in bulk over the holiday season, stored in freezers all over the world, and enjoyed year-round.

Why Do Puerto Ricans Eat Pasteles at Christmas?

Because they take a conservative 8-10 hours to make from start to finish, the pasteles-making process is usually reserved for Christmastime as a way to gift loved ones with delicious food, and (in my household, at least) to recruit the help of family to wrap pasteles in an assembly line fashion. When it came to making pasteles in my Abuela’s house, everyone had a specific task. One of my cousins would be tasked with brushing annatto oil on each plantain leaf, who would then pass it to the cousin in charge of pouring exactly ¼ cup of masa onto the oiled section of the leaf. The assembly line would eventually end with my Abuela as the official “Pastel Wrapper” and quality control manager. She would tie each pastel perfectly with twine, secure two in a pack, then stack them up until the ingredients ran out.

This year was my first year making them on my own, and while my wrapping skills still have a long way to go, it was so wonderful to take a bite of a freshly-boiled pastel and instantly be transported back to my Abuela’s kitchen during Christmas.

Originally published 12/02/2022

Ingredients

1. For the filling
   2 lbs pork shoulder, cubed
   ½ cup fresh sofrito, divided
   2 tablespoons lime juice
   1 tablespoon (2 packets) sazón
   1 teaspoon adobo
   ½ cup tomato sauce
   2 cups water
   1-2 dried bay leaves
   1/4 cup sliced green olives (optional)

1. For annatto oil
   ½ cup vegetable or sunflower oil
   2 tablespoons whole annatto seeds

1. For the masa
   10-12 very green bananas
   1 cup fresh pumpkin, cubed
   1 cup fresh yuca or taro root, cubed
   ¼ cup annatto oil
   1 cup pork broth
   1 tablespoon sazón
   ½ tablespoon adobo

1. For shaping
   24 12 in x 6 in sheets of parchment paper
   24 6 in x 3 in sheets of banana leaves
   Cooking twine
   Scissors

Directions

1. Gather ingredients for the filling.
2. Clean the pork shoulder with vinegar and water, making sure to rinse the pork well. Cut the pork into small cubes, then place in a large bowl.
3. Add ¼ cup sofrito, lime juice, sazón, and adobo to the bowl. Mix well, then store in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
4. To cook the filling, place a deep skillet over medium-high heat, then add 1-2 tablespoons of any mild cooking oil (vegetable or sunflower) and the remaining ¼ cup of sofrito. Sauté for a few minutes before adding the marinated pork.
5. After a few minutes of sautéing the cubed pork, or when the pork is about 70% cooked, add the tomato sauce, water, olives, and dried bay leaves. Bring the mixture to a boil, then cover the pot and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
6. While the pork is simmering, prepare the annatto oil by boiling the vegetable oil and annatto seeds for 20 minutes, or until the oil is tinted red.
7. Once the pork has simmered and cooked all the way through, remove from the heat and reserve one cup of the liquid, and strain over a sieve to use in the masa.
8. To make the masa, clean and peel the bananas, pumpkin, and taro root. Cut the raw vegetables into large chunks and place the pieces in a bowl of salted water until you are ready to grate them. Grate the vegetables either by hand or using the grater attachment in an electric mixer, then add the shredded vegetables to a food processor bowl and blend until you have a smooth paste.
9. Add the blended vegetable masa to a large bowl, then mix in ¼ cup of annatto oil, sazón, adobo, and pork broth. Make sure the masa is well-combined, then set aside to prepare the wrapping tools. At this point, you can store the masa and pork filling in the fridge for up to 24 hours and wrap the pasteles the following day.
10. Before wrapping the pasteles, cut the sheets of parchment paper and banana leaves into the appropriate sizes.
11. To wrap the pasteles, start with a single sheet of parchment paper, then add a sheet of banana leaf on top. Brush the center of the banana leaf with annatto oil, then add ¼ cup of masa to the oiled section.