Alcapurrias

Alcapurrias are fritters made with green bananas and yautia (a starchy tuber, similar to taro), and stuffed with a beef filling.

Alcapurrias are made at home, and are also typically sold at little league baseball games, fairs, at the beach, and more. Alcapurrias are not difficult to make, but they are very time consuming (grating the bananas and yautia). They are inexpensive, since we grow the green bananas and yautia on our property.

Carol is in charge of the food kiosk at the little league this week, and she found a woman who makes excellent alcapurrias in her home for a living. She sells them to small businesses in the area, and to anyone else who knows about her. She sells a box of 24 for $9; it's not likely that we will make them again ourselves. Nonetheless, here's how:

• 2 pounds green bananas
  
• 2 pounds yautia
  
• 2 tablespoons salt
  
• 2 packages Goya sofrito
  

1. Peel and grate the bananas and yautia to form a paste.
   
2. Make a filling of whatever you like; typically ground beef with onions, garlic, and olives.
   
3. To form, put a little vegetable oil on a dinner plate, put about 2 tablespoons of the paste on the plate, make an impression in the paste and fill it with 1 teaspoon of the stuffing. Use a spoon to form the paste around the stuffing.
   
4. Fry in vegetable oil over medium heat until golden.
   

Banana Bread

We grow lots of bananas on our property, and we often have more than we know what to do with.

I decided to make banana bread using the recipe from How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman. This has become my go-to cookbook for all kinds of food. The recipes are simple, and always good. Bittman says that the dried, unsweetened coconut is the key to this bread, but I couldn't find any so I left it out, and added more banana to make up the volume. It's ironic that I can't find coconut, since I have a coconut palm not 10 feet from my house, but all the stores carry is the sweetened stuff. The recipe also calls for ½ cup of whole-wheat flour, which I didn't have; I used all-purpose.

This makes 2 loaves using 5" by 7" baking pans, or 18 muffins.

Dry ingredients:

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 2 teaspoons salt
  

Mix these in a large bowl

Wet ingredients:

• 4 eggs, beaten
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  
• 6 very ripe bananas
  
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 2 sticks butter, creamed

For the end:

• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened

Mash the bananas. I do this with a pastry blender, but you can also use a fork. Combine the banana with the other wet ingredients, then add the wet to the dry, mixing just enough to combine. Don't over mix.

Mix in the coconut and walnuts.

Divide the batter into 2 greased pans and bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 350F. When done, a toothpick sould come out fairly clean (sometimes not entirely, since the bread is so moist).

Banana Muffins

You can also make muffins using this same recipe. Butter the muffin tin, or use muffin papers.

Makes 18 muffins

Meatballs

Whenever I make tomato sauce, I also make meatballs.

Note that I use only beef. Most people will suggest that you use some combination of beef, pork, and veal, but I cook the way my mother taught me.

• 2 lbs ground beef
  
• 1 small onion minced
  
• 2 cloves garlic minced
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1/2 cup Parmigiano Regiano cheese
  
• 2 cups fresh Italian bread crumbs
  
• extra-virgin olive oil for frying
• salt and pepper
  

I make meatballs in two different sizes: a little bigger than a golf ball for tomato sauce, or about the size of a marble for soup.

1. Mix all ingredients except the olive oil in a bowl. Don't over mix.
   
2. Brown meatballs on all sides in olive oil, or bake at 350F for 25 minutes.
   
3. Finish cooking the meatballs in tomato sauce for an hour or two.

Tomato Sauce

I make two basic tomato sauces: a simple one without meat for pizza, calzones, and nearly anything else you can think of, and a long-cooking meat sauce for pasta.

Simple Tomato Sauce

I make a very simple tomato sauce for pizza:

• 2 28 ounce cans whole, peeled tomatoes.
  
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 large onion, minced
  
• extra-virgin olive oil
  
• salt and pepper
  

1. Heat the oil and add the onion and garlic to soften. Do not brown.
2. Add the tomatoes, and break them up with a fork.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Simmer for 45 minutes with the pot loosely covered: you want some of the liquid to evaporate. If you want, puree the sauce with an stick blender (I always do). You can also do this in a counter-top blender.
   

Here's my mighty 2-piece stick blender. It's a Cuisinart, of course.

Sunday Tomato Sauce

OK, you can make this any day of the week, but it takes a long time (5+ hours, mostly unattended), so Sunday is a good choice for me.

This is an Italian tomato sauce as I've been making it for 30 years. It evolved from my mother's sauce: I still go to her constantly for recipes and cooking advice.

I know it's bad karma to use dried herbs, but if it was good enough for mom, it's good enough for me.

This long-cooked sauce (some might call it a sugo), of course, is for pasta. You can make a much simpler sauce for pizza (shown at the top of the page) and that sauce works for pasta as well.

I'm often asked if this sauce can be made with turkey sausage. Of course not.

• 3 large onions, chopped
  
• olive oil
  
• 6 cloves minced garlic
  
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
  
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1 or more cups red wine
  
• 1 6 pound 10 ounce can San Marsano whole tomatoes (I get these at Costco).
  
• 3 lbs Italian Sausage (sweet, hot, or a combination)
  
• 1 recipe meatballs
  

Since I'm cooking for seven, I always make double this recipe. You need a very large sauce pot (I use a 16-quart with a thick bottom). It makes enough for at least 6 pounds of pasta. It's enough for at least four meals for seven people, with meatballs and sausages left over for sandwiches. I freeze sauce and meat in 1-gallon freezer bags.

1. Heat the sauce pot, and add enough olive oil to about 1/8"
2. Add the onions, and immediately add salt. You want to soften the onions, not color them, and salt will draw out water. Stir occasionally.
3. Add the garlic. Stir.
4. Remove the casings from four or five Italian sausages, and add the meat to the pot. Break up the sausage with a wooden spoon, and brown.
5. Add the oregano, basil, and bay leaves. Stir.
6. Add the red wine, and simmer for five minutes.
7. Add the San Marsano tomatoes. This will cool the pot enough for you to crush the tomatoes with your hands. Work quickly, or take the pot off the heat.
8. Brown the remaining sausages in olive oil and set aside.
   

I generally cook this sauce (covered) for six hours (at least four), adding the browned sausages and meatballs an hour before serving. Use the lowest heat possible, and stir frequently. Add water when the sauce gets too thick.

Serve the sauce over pasta; spaghetti, ziti, riggatoni, and most dried pastas work well. Serve with Parmigianno Reggiano and crushed red pepper to taste. Use left-over meatballs and sausages for sandwiches.

Pan de Luis

We have two basic fresh breads (pan is Spanish for bread) in Puerto Rico: Pan de Agua and Pan Sobao. Pan de Agua is a basic bread, similar to Italian or French bread, but with a softer crust, and a tight, soft crumb. Pan Sobao is richer, with shortening and sugar. Again, soft texture.

While these are both fabulous breads, I am Italian-American, and I miss the crusty bread I grew up with. I decided to make my own.

I've made bread many times before, but two things are different here: you can't get unbleached flour, and you can't get instant yeast. Instant yeast is fool-proof: you mix it with the flour and salt, add the water, and you're done. Here, I can only get active dry yeast, which is more temperamental. You need to proof it in warm water for 10 minutes before adding additional ingredients. If you don't get bubbles, the yeast is dead. Start over. As to the flour, I can only get bleached, enriched flour here. The nearest Whole Foods in 1,400 miles away.

I found several recipes for bread on the Internet and settled on this:

I made a biga, with 1/2 teaspoon of yeast proofed in one cup of warm water, and one and 1 1/2 cups of flour. I let this sit at room temperature for five hours, then put it in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day:

1. Proof one package of active dry yeast in two cups of warm water.
2. Add five cups of flour, a little at a time, along with two teaspoons of salt.
3. Add the biga, knead for 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.
4. Let rise in a slightly oiled bowl for one and 1/2 hours, or until doubled in volume.
5. Punch down, and fold on itself several times to redistribute the yeast.
6. Let rise another hour, or until doubled in volume again.
7. Shape into a loaf, and transfer to a lightly-oiled sheet pan that's dusted with corn meal.
8. Preheat the oven to 375F with a oven-proof pan of water in the oven. Bake for an hour. The internal temperature should be 200F.
9. Let rest for at least 20 minutes. Slice and eat. This bread freezes very well.

Pasteles

As luck would have it, shortly after I finished my first blog, my mother-in-law (Carmen) sent me up the last of the Christmas pasteles. Pasteles are somewhat similar to Mexican tamales, but instead of corn for the massa we use Puerto Rican staples.

Pasteles are incredibly time consuming to make, and are therefor typically served only around the holidays, especially Christmas and Three Kings Day. This particular batch was made by Carmen's niece, who lives half a mile up the mountain from us.

Pasteles start with the massa, or paste. This is made up of grated green bananas, yautia, platanos, calabaza, and potato. All of these (except the potato) come from our property, and are our contribution to the feast. You then add achiote for color.You smear some of the massa onto a banana leaf into a rough rectangle, and spoon some pork filling into the middle. The pork filling has green olives with pimentos, tomato, garlic, garbanzos, and spices. You then fold up the banana leaf so that the massa completely encloses the filling, then tie the leaf with string.

You cook the pasteles in a pot of slowly-boiling water for about half an hour. They freeze beautifully (unwrap them first).

Here is a reasonable recipe at Rican Recipes. It's slightly different from what we do, but close enough, except they suggest using a food processor to save time. I tried that with my trusty 11-cup, and it's now in Cuisinart heaven.

You either love pasteles or you hate them. I love them; my Puerto Rican wife hates them. I can't wait until next year.

About Cocina Luis

Cocina means both kitchen and cookery in Spanish. My name is Lou, but everyone here calls me Luis.

This is about food in Puerto Rico. It's not necessarily about Puerto Rican food, although there's lots of that, but more about what we eat here. Food is a challenge here for me, an Italian-American having lived in the Boston area for the last twenty years. Now that I live in Puerto Rico, I realize the wealth and diversity of ingredients I took for granted. The nearest Whole Foods is 1,400 miles away, and all my salumi and Italian cheeses come shipped over night from sympathetic family and friends on the mainland.

Not that we don't have abundant and wonderful ingredients here: we do. On our six acres alone we have pineapple, yuca, bread fruit, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, plantains, yams, and several types of bananas. All the grocery stores carry pork, beef, and chicken, but we're lucky to find Italian sausage once a month.

Why the lack of culinary diversity? I suppose it's because of the lack of cultural diversity. Nearly everyone here is Puerto Rican. We don't have Italian, Greek, Armenian, Chinese, Korean, or middle-eastern neighborhoods here, so there's no real demand for the food of those cultures.

We also don't have ethnic restaurants (I don't count the fast-food faux Mexican and Chinese places). I haven't had pizza in two years, let alone gyros, falafel, pad Thai, dim sum, bagels, lox, and many, many others. Oddly enough, I can get great Sushi.

I should mention that I live in Aguas Buenas in the central-mountain region of Puerto Rico. I'm sure many of the foods I mentioned are available in San Juan and some of the bigger cities, but we seldom go there. Caguas is the closest "big" city, and that's where we do most of our shopping. Caguas also has a lot of American fast-food restaurants, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Churches Chicken, and more, but I was never a fan of fast food; I simply won't eat that stuff.

As I mentioned, this as about what we eat here. My mother-in-law is a great Puerto Rican cook, and I have my Italian-American specialties. Now that I'm retired (at the tender age of 50), I am experimenting with any kind of food I can make with the ingredients available.