Pasteles
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Type | Dumpling |
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Pasteles (Spanish pronunciation:
Puerto Rican pasteles
Related to
Puerto Rico has turned pasteles making into an art[according to whom?] having hundreds of recipes and an annual pastel festival (Festival Nacional del Pastel Puertorriqueño)[1] on the island.
In Puerto Rico, pasteles are a cherished culinary recipe, especially around Christmas-time. The masa consists of typically grated
Traditionally masa was flavored breadcrumbs and butter, almonds were added to the filling and a chili would be tucked on one end of every pastel. The chili in most homes is eliminated and is replaced with ajilimójili, Pique sauce, or ketchup mixed with chili.
Assembling a typical pastel involves a large sheet of parchment paper, a strip of banana leaf that has been heated over an open flame to make it supple, and a little annatto oil on the leaf. The masa is then placed on banana leaf and stuffed with the meat mixture. The paper is then folded and tied with kitchen string to form packets. Some people use aluminum foil instead of parchment and string. Parchment paper is only applied if the pastel is boiled or steamed. Once made, pasteles can either be cooked in boiling water,
Pasteles de yuca[3] is one of many recipes in Puerto Rico that are popular around the island and in Latin America. The masa is made with cassava, other root vegetables, plantains, and squash. The recipe calls for cassava to replace the green bananas of the traditional pasteles de masa. Cassava is grated and squeezed through a cheesecloth removing most of its liquid. Broth, milk, butter, annatto oil is added to the masa and is typically filled with shredded chicken and other ingredients.
According to Carmen Aboy Valldejuli, the original name for a Puerto Rican Pastel was Mamie. Although calling them mamies has lost use in recent generations it is still the official name in Carmen Aboy Valldejuli's book Cocina Criolla[4] (the Puerto Rican "culinary bible").[5]
Other regional variations
Colombia
Colombian pasteles are called pastel de arroz since their humble beginnings. It is often confused with the tamal from the Andean region, which is made up with corn.
Dominican Republic
In the Dominican Republic pasteles are a Christmas tradition, adopted from Puerto Rico. The masa is identical to Puerto Rican masa but replaces milk and broth with
A Dominican cookbook in 1938 is the first to print recipes on pasteles.[citation needed] The cookbook printed two recipes, titled pasteles Puertorriqueño and pasteles Dominicano. The only difference is the inclusion of cassava in the recipe for Dominican pasteles which currently is not included. Adding cassava was a way to differentiate from Puerto Rican pasteles. Over time Dominicans changed the name to pasteles de hoja and have their own filling and way on seasoning the masa that makes it uniquely Dominican. Some date indicates that at the beginning of the 20th century pasteles made its way from Puerto Rico to San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.
Although the first recipes appear in a Dominican cookbook, pasteles were first written about in aguinaldo Puertorriqueño in 1843 about Puerto Rican Christmas traditions.[
Hawaii
The common name for this food in Hawaii, pateles, is most likely borrowed from Caribbean Spanish, which features weakening or loss of /s/ at the end of syllables: the pronunciation of pasteles as "pateles" occurs in Puerto Rican dialects, for instance. Over 5000 Puerto Ricans migrated to Hawaii at the dawn of the 20th century to work in sugar plantations. The singular of pasteles, pastel (often pronounced patel), has been constructed through back-formation. Other variations of this dish include pastele de olla y mistura or "pastele stew",[8] pastele de olla, and pastel al horno.[9]
Trinidad and Tobago
They exist in some form or another throughout Latin America and are more commonly known in Venezuela as hallacas (pronounced hayacas). The origins of pastelles are unclear.[
A sweet version is called paime and is also a Christmas dish. It contains no filling, but the dough itself contains ground coconut and raisins.[11]
See also
Notes
References
- ^ "Festival del Pastel". Festivaldelpastel.com. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
- ^ "Annatto Oil". Cookistry.com. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
- ^ Meseydi Rivera (14 December 2017). "Pasteles de yuca Recipe (with Pictures)". thenoshery.com.
- ^ "Carmen Aboy de Valldejuli: de Puerto Rico para el mundo". Yaira Solís Escudero, EL VOCERO. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
- ^ "Pasteles and Ketchup". Melissa Fuster, PhD. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
- ^ "Cartagena de Indias - Colombia - Sur América - Colombia - Sur América".
- ^ "A comer pastel". 18 December 2011.
- ^ "Pastele Stew". Retrieved 30 October 2016.
- ^ Recipes from the Heart of Hawaii's Puerto Ricans. Cookbooks by Morris Press. 1999. pp. 34–35.
- ^ Coen, Kristina. "Iconic Cuisine: Tamales of the Maya". HistoricalMX. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
- ^ The Multi-Cultural Cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago. Naparima Girls' High School Cookbook. 2nd edition 2002, p. 165