Cooking Diva

La Receta del Dia: Yuca Croquettes with Chorizo and Broccoli filling, served with Orange Tamarind Sauce. YUM!!!

This is my non-entry for the Paper Chef February 2005, second recipe…contest. Specially designed for Owen. No point on asking for the -bonus points- because I am 1 day late---but anyways, I prepared this for lunch today, using the 4 extra ingredients: tamarind, chorizo, stale bread and broccoli. Hope you like it!

Yuca , cassava or mandioca (Manihot esculenta, Crantz) is a root originary from Brasil and Paraguay. It is an annual tuber crop grown widely in tropical and sub-tropical areas. It thrives in sandy loam soil low organic matter and can tolerate low rainfall and high temperatures. It is therefore a cash crop cultivated by smallholder farmers within the existin farming systems in many countries.

Ingredients for Croquettes:

1/2 lb (8 oz) yuca, peeled, cut in chunks and boiled for 15 mins

4 oz chorizo (I am using Panamanian chorizo from Las Tablas)

2 oz broccoli, cut, steamed and drained

Stale bread, grinded and seasoned with dry herbs

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Once yuca is cooked, drain and pulse in the food processor until dough is uniform.
2. Chorizo comes heavily seasoned most of the time, so there is no need to add spices to the filling this time. But, if you want to be sure…go ahead, taste and adjust seasonings to your liking :)
3. Take two tablespoons of yuca dough aprox., make a ball and then flatten it to a disk. Put one layer of chorizo and one layer of broccoli in the middle and top with a second flattened disk of yuca dough. Seal the edges. Wet your fingers and rub the surface of the croquette with your hands to make it even and seal edges. It has to be smoth and beautiful.
4. Roll over some bread crumbs (ground stale bread seasoned with herbs)
5. At this point you have to choices: you can deep fry, or oven fry the croquette.
6. Oven fry directions: after spraying them with some canola oil …I`ll oven fry these beauties for 15 minutes (350º pre-heated oven)
7. While they are baking, prepare the sauce:

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil, then add

1/4 cup red onion, chopped (or shallots),

1 tablespoon sugar

sautee until caramelized.

Then add 3 tablespoons tamarind concentrate

1/4 cup orange juice, and simmer for 3 minutes, or until it`s reduced to 1/2.

Adjust seasonings, and serve with croquettes!

Enjoy!

Chef M

Tags: yuca, cassava, cookingdiva, chef, panama, recipe