Tutorials

This past month, I received an email from a fan who was requesting a recipe for one of my favorite things in the world, a Relleno de Papa, and because I promised her that I would walk her through the process, step by step, here I go. The ingredients are as follows:

Picadillo

2 tablespoons of achiote oil

3/4 pound of ground pork

3/4 cup sofrito

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 cup alcaparrado

2 tablespoon AP flour

3 tablespoons water

sea salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

Potato Mixture

5 large Yukon Gold Potatoes

3/4 cups of milk

3 tablespoons butter

1 egg

sea salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

3 cups of AP flour

3 jumbo eggs, beaten

canola oil for deep frying

Heat the achiote oil over medium high heat in a skillet and add the pork to completely cook through. Once most of the meat is cooked through, add your sofrito, stirring well to incorporate.
Add the remaining ingredients: the alcaparrado, the ground cumin, salt and pepper to season the picadillo, stirring to mix completely.
Singer the picadillo with the flour, to thicken slightly, then stir the water into the picadillo to cook off the flour, and aid in the thickening process.
Stir in the blanched peas and carrots (frozen is okay), and add this to the picadillo. Set aside.
Boil the peeled potatoes in salted boiling water until soft, and drain. Add the butter, milk, and egg, and whip until fluffy, but still dry. Set aside to cool (I actually put mine in the refririgerator for 30 minutes to dry out a bit).
Using your hand, scoop up a baseball sized portion of cooled mashed potatoes, and using the back of a large spoon, make a well in the center of the potato.
Using a tablespoon, add the picadillo to the center of the well, working the potato ball closed (you can add a little more mashed potato to close it off, if that helps).
Okay, here comes the fun part. Dredge the potato balls in flour, dip them in beaten egg, and then in flour once more to coat. In the meantime, heat your oil in a deep fryer to 375 degrees (please make sure that the fryer is deep enough that the oil does not spill over when you add the potato balls, and make sure that you use a thermometer, as temperature is integral to the success of the execution). I would not recommend you do this in a pan.
Carefully lower the potato balls into the oil, with a wire spider or a slotted ladle.
The potato balls will form a golden crust in about 4-5 minutes. Take them out and drain on paper towels, keeping them in a warm oven while you finish.