Peruvian Papa Rellena

Peruvian Entree

PAPA RELLENA
(Peruvian Stuffed Potato)

INGREDIENTS

DOUGH
4 medium-to-large potatoes
1 cup flour
1 egg (4 eggs total, 1 here and 3 in filling.)

FILLING
1 medium onion
4 garlic cloves
3/4 pound ground beef
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon Meat MagicTM spice
1/4 teaspoon parsley
3 eggs (4 eggs total, 3 here and 1 in dough.)

Vegetable oil

SPECIALITY COOKWARE

Deep fryer or deep pot
potato masher
a cheap Monet painting

INITIAL PREPARATION

Peel potatoes. Boil the spuds in large pot for about 40 minutes.

FILLING PREPARATION

While potatoes are boiling, boil 3 eggs for 12 minutes. (If you’re feeling particularly efficient, boil the eggs with the potatoes. Just be sure the eggs are only in the boiling water for the required 12 minutes.)

While eggs are boiling, mince onions and garlic. Add onion, garlic, ground beef, pepper, salt, meat spice, and parsley to frying pan. Cook on medium-high heat until beef is no longer red and onions are soft. Put beef mixture in first mixing bowl.

Remove hard-boiled eggs. Peel and dice them. Add diced hard-boiled eggs to beef mixture in bowl.

DOUGH PREPARATION

Remove potatoes. Pulverize them with a potato masher. (You say your son’s Little LeagueTM coach kept him on the bench? Then pulverize them taters! Put some muscle behind your blows. Smash ‘em, smash ‘em, make ‘em beg. Ahem.) Combine the surviving mashed potatoes with flour and egg in second mixing bowl.

Admire cheap Monet painting. Fill deep fryer with 4 inches of vegetable oil or a neutral cooking oil. Heat oil to 340-to-350 degrees. Anything higher gets kinda scary.

While oil heats, put a generous amount of flour on your hand. (This prevents the sticky flour from well, sticking to your hand.) Put a ball of the potato mixture–1 to 2 tablespoons–in your palm. Use four fingers of the other hand to make a hole in the mixture. Put about a teaspoon of the cooked ground-beef mix in the hole. Fold top of potato ball completely over the beef center. Roll the potato-meat ball in your hands to make it smooth. (Again, coat your hands with flour before making each potato-meat ball.)

Use a ladle or tongs to gently lower the potato-meat ball into the hot oil. (You don’t want to get too close to that stuff.) Fry the ball until it is golden brown. Remove and dab with paper napkin to remove excess oil.

This is a great and tasty way to use up those potatoes skulking in the corner of the pantry.

TIDBITS

1) Lima is the capital of Peru.

2) Boston is the capital of Massachusetts.

3) I like Boston baked beans much more than lima beans.

4) Peru has fourteen golf courses.

5) With 3,000 species of potatoes originating in Peru, the (potato species originating / golf course) ratio is 214:1.

6) Peru also has a lot of earthquakes.

7) Ireland is famous for having potatoes without earthquakes.

8) But Ireland also had the Great Potato Failure in the 1840s.

9) Growing potatoes is kinda scary, isn’t it?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.