Yellow Plantain and Meat Pie

submitted by connally
from Pittsburgh, PA

(Pastelon de Amarillos)

1 pound ground beef
5 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 cup basic recaito (see Freddie's Recaito recipes below)
1/2 cup manzanilla olives, chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/ pound green beans, cooked
1 cup tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
7 very ripe yellow plantains, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
1/2 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
6 eggs, beaten
oil for frying

Brown the meat in a large frying pan. Add the next 9 ingredients and cook
over medium heat for 5 minutes. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350F. Heat
the oil and fry the plantains until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
Spread 1/2 of the filling in the bottom of a 9-inch square baking pan. Add
a layer of 1/2 of the plantain slices and cover with the remaining
filling. Add the mozzarella cheese. Top with the remaining plantain
slices. Pour the eggs over all. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the eggs are
set. Kate's Notes: Here are the changes I would make in the future. This
is definitely too much for a 9"x9" pan. I doubled it, thinking to put it
in a bigger, deeper foil pan but I only used about 3/4 of the meat
mixture, but then I had used closer to 3 lbs. of meat than 2 lbs. I used 2
cans of DelMonte diced tomatoes. That seems about right for the amount of
meat. One pound of green beans seemed like way too much. I would use
1/2-3/4 lb. for 2 lbs. of meat. Seven is definitely too many plantains. I
bought 8 for a double recipe and ended up using only 4 of them for the 2
lbs. of meat. Cheese amount is okay, although I only used about 3/4 lb. I
could have used the whole amount.

New Ingredient List (based on the way mine came out for a double recipe -
the original ingredient list is for a single recipe):

2 pounds ground beef
2 cans diced tomatoes (plain or seasoned with onion, garlic, and/or
oregano)(this replaces the
fresh tomatoes and the tomato sauce in the original recipe)
1 cup recaito (I used the 3rd version)
1 cup manzanilla olives, chopped (I left these out since I hate olives!)
1 cup golden raisins
1/2-3/4 pound green beans, cooked
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste (due to salt in canned tomatoes I did not
double the salt)
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
4 very ripe, yellow plantains, peeled and cut into 1/2"-thick slices
1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
9 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
oil for frying

The original (single) recipe calls for baking this in a 9"x9" pan. Based
on what I found out doing a double recipe there's no way the single would
fit in a standard 9"x9" baking pan - it's not nearly deep enough. For the
double recipe I used one of those large, disposable aluminum
baking/roasting pans, about 9"x13" and about 4" deep (I haven't actually
measured it, this is just a guess). Anyway, it barely holds everything.
Another note, for the egg custard topping, I decided to add milk to make
it more custardy rather than more like an omelette or scrambled egg
texture. I don't know how "authentic" this is but I thought I would like
it better - more like the topping on moussaka, pastitsio, or bobotie,
which this dish reminds me of in some ways.


Freddie's Recamto

Recamto is always part of the sofrito base ingredient for many Puerto
Rican dishes. It is made of vegetables and a few condiments, it adds a
distinctive taste to our foods. I am going to introduce 3 recipes of
recamto because in some places you can't find some of the ingredients. If
you can get all of the ingredients you are very lucky, but the basic
recipe will do just fine. You can also make a large batch to store into
jars to refrigerate, just double or triple the recipes.

Basic recipe:

1/2 small green pepper
1/2 medium yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Better recipe:
Same ingredients as in the basic recipe plus:
2 sprigs of fresh cilantro

The best recipe: Same ingredients as in the basic and better plus: 2
recao leaves (use parsley if recao isn't availiable)

Chop up all the ingredients into chunks and process them in your food
processor which is the best and process until it's all chopped up to
resemble oatmeal (pictured). If you don't have a food processor use a
blender, if neither chop everything up into very tiny pieces. Recamto can
be used for all types of foods, and they don't have to be Puerto Rican.

Cilantro (eryngium foetidum) is a flavorful herb used in Caribbean
cooking. Puerto Rico uses it extensively in all kinds of stews, soups,
beans, asopao, etc. It is a more flavorful substitute for Cilantro for all
your culinary creations. It is definitely not easy to come by the seeds
for this fragrant herb until now. I have available these seeds packed
hermetically sealed to last you for some time. Another name for this herb
in Puerto Rico is recao. In Asia it is also known as long coriander.
Cilantro is also known as ngo-gai, spirit weed, long coriander, false
coriander, black benny, recao de monte, Mexican coriander, and well over
65 more names in different parts of the world.

--
Kate Connally

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