Alcapurrias (Puerto Rican Fritters)
Alcapurrias are a Puerto Rican fritter made with a masa (dough) of yautía (a root vegetable) and green bananas and filled with savory meat.
- Prep Time: 60 Minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 12
- Category: Appetizers
- Cuisine: Puerto Rican
Ingredients
Alcapurrias:
Masa:
1 lb green banana (around 4 bananas)
1 lb yautia (one large or two small tubers)
1 packet of sazón
2 tbsp of achiote oil (if you can’t find it, just do another packet of sazón)
Adobo to taste
Filling:
Note: you can use different fillings such as corned beef, ground beef, crab. For this recipe, I used ground pork.
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 small onion
1 lb ground pork
2 tbsp tomato sauce
1 packet of sazón
1 tsp of adobo
1/2 cup of sofrito
1/3 cup of finely chopped olives (optional)
Cooking oil to fry
Banana leaf to shape the alcapurria (if you can’t find it, brush some olive oil on the parchment paper.
Instructions
To make picadillo:
- Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add onions, and cook until translucent
- Add the ground meat and use a spatula or wooden spoon to break it down
- Add tomato sauce, sazon, sofrito and olives and stir well, until all the condiments have integrated.
- Cook picadillo until cooked through. Around 12-15 minutes. Set aside.
To make masa:
- Peel green bananas and yautia. Chop in small pieces, around 1-inch cubes.
- Add the vegetables to the food processor in small batches until a smooth masa is created. In between batches, add sazon and achiote oil. Be patient, this will take several minutes as the yautia is very tough. Keep pulsing at high until the masa is smooth.
- Place the masa in a storage container and refrigerate for an hour. You can bypass this step if you’re hangry BUT it helps make the masa more pliable. If you have the time, do it!
- In a large frying pan, add enough oil (I use canola oil) to fill the pan, and warm in medium heat.
Assemble the alcapurrias:
- While the oil heats up, assemble the alcapurrias. In a banana leaf, spoon a little bit of achiote oil (around ½ tsp) and then spoon around ⅓ to ½ cup of the masa and spread into a circle.
- Hold the banana leaf with the masa in your hand like it’s a hot dog bun and add around ¼ cup of picadillo. The key is not to overfill them because the alcapurria will break in the fryer. With a spoon, move the masa around the picadillo to cover the alcapurria. If you need to grab a little more masa to cover the meat, go ahead and do it. The key is not to leave any meat exposed because they will fall apart.
- Add the alcapurria to the hot oil. Tip: make sure the oil is HOT. Cook for 3-4 minutes on both sides until crispy.
- Transfer to a plate with paper towels to absorb the oil.
- Enjoy!
