Mom decided to finally give in to my brother's constant requests of a decent grill-house so she had one built in one of the corners of the house. Freshly finished it was time to test it out. I go up early that morning and set off to the store to get meat. Asado was for lunch!
In Paraguay, mandioca is a comon side to any meal. In Argentina, bread and chimichurri help tame the asador's hunger while cooking at the grill, in Paraguay mandioca typically fulfills this function.
It's very hard for us to eat all that food so there's always left overs. Whatever meat is left is quickly consumed during the afternoon's refrigerator raids and all that's left the next day are usually a few pieces of cooked mandioca.
So I decided that I wanted to play with the food processor and see what kind of texture I would get if I shredded the harder roots. I wanted to try to make a dough out of tapioca. In the Paraguayan winter, empanadas made out of tapioca crusts and deep fried in pig fat or trans-fatty oils are very popular. And cheap in most places. The price of one of these empanadas are slightly higher than traditional wheat empanadas costing $0.50 to $1.50 US dollar each
These are called Pastel Mandi'o or empanadas de mandioca. Usually they're in "empanada" form but at home they are made in a larger tart form, equally delicious.
Mandihot esuculenta needs to be boiled thoroughly to remove the cianotoxins it contains. Never eat it raw, 300gs is enough to kill you. Most of the toxins are found in the skin, so if you peel them and them cook them in a pressure cooker and you'll be able to get rid of them. No traces found after cooking like this. They can be fermented too, but this is a practice more common in African countries.
So the food processor was plugged in and the process began. I found that it was a little heavy for my cheap Korean food processor. Mother said that a meat grinder is much more efficient and that that was what was usually used to mash tapioca roots
I later had to borrow one but still have to try it out. I managed to shred up most of the mandioca without doing to much harm to the food processor. It turned out to do the job nicely and result in a shredded cocunut like consistency.
I didn't follow any recipes, I just added the three eggs I had in the refrigerator. I wanted to taste the mandioca so I didn't add any salt or fat either.
It turned out very nice, very easy to mold. For some reason I decided to let it sit before I spread it on the mold. Traditionally, anything eaten with tapioca in Paraguay had to have been bleeding at one point. I decided to steer away from tradition and make a vegetarian version. Cabbage, an eggplant, 2 carrots an onion and some celery was used for the filling.
Oh, and a little but of the local variety of squash as well. The carrots and squash was hand shredded and the eggplant was peeled and cut in quarter slices. I also chopped the onions and cabbage semi-coarsely. I didn't want it all to turn to mush when I cooked it. about a tablespoonful nutmeg was added and a tspof salt to get the juices flowing.
I took out a round pyrex my mother usually uses for tarts and started to line the bottom with the dough. I couldn't roll it out that easily because I didn't add any oil to it. So, what I did was take out chunks and squish them against the bottom and sides with the palm of my hand.
After covering the whole mold I had a little bit of dough left over. I took out a smaller mold and it was just enough to make another pie (or tart, what's the difference?) that I ended up stuffing with fresh ground beef mixed with red and black pepper and salt. I topped the little tart with two pieces of creamy cheese my mother smuggled in from Argentina
Here's what they both looked like brfore going into the over for about an hour at 350*C
meat filled tart
veggie filled
The veggie one came out great. The texture of the dough was perfect but I need to add salt and fat next time. I could taste the mandioca's flavor but it would be much better accentuated with as bit of salt. I guess if you want a thinner crust it comes out crispy enough. I have to try making a pizza crust next time too.
Also, my mother requested that I add cheese to the veggie one too. So I stuffed pieces of creamy cheese (the same kind I put on the meat tart) around half of the tart. In the following picture you can see how this cheese half turned out.
The other half turned out pretty well also.
This last picture is a close up of the meat tart. I had put fresh ground un-cooked meat. Like any burger the meat kinda shrank. So there were spaces between the cooked meat and the sides of the crust. Still completely edible, of course. Just a little juicy on the sides because the dough wasn't absorbent enough.
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