Papas Rellenas & Aji Dipping Sauce

Inspired by Peruvian Cooking

Once again, a type of food I have never had before has popped into my life. What is it this time? Papas Rellenas! Okay, what is papas rellenas? For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, it is stuffed potatoes. It is basically mashed potatoes wrapped around a ground beef mixture, then deep-fried. Super tasty and the perfect finger food.

Papas rellenas was introduced to me as both a Peruvian and Cuban dish. After a little research, I found that it started in Peru. Many South and Central American countries have taken the dish and adapted it to their tastes, Cuba in particular. In Peru, it is served with a spicy green sauce called aji sauce.

I tried to recreate the papas rellenas and the aji sauce, but I had a little difficulty. It is a bit time-consuming, but you can always refrigerate or freeze the unfried ones and eat them later.

Lessons Learned:

Don’t mess with the papas rellenas while they are frying. My first batch broke apart because I was checking on them too much. I only touched the second batch when I was turning them, so they stayed intact.
Prepare yourself to be gassed when cooking chilis. I always end up coughing because the spice somehow gets in the air.
Don’t wait until the last-minute to make. You will hate yourself later. There are lots of different things that need to be cooked separate then combined and cooked again. You will end up with lots of dishes and a mess in the kitchen that you don’t want anyone to see.
The aji sauce didn’t turn out as creamy as I would have liked. Next time I am going to try creama instead of cheese.

Papas Rellenas

Author: Learn by Cooking

Ingredients

4 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 Tbsp milk
½ tsp salt
2 eggs beaten
1 cup dry bread crumbs
¼ cup flour
oil for frying (enough to fill a pan so that the oil covers half the potato ball)
½ medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb ground beef
1 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp lime juice
salt & pepper to taste
Aji Sauce:
6 jalapenos
1 small onion roughly chopped
1 garlic clove
1 Tbsp olive oil
½ cup cilantro leaves & stems
3 oz cotija cheese
salt to taste
water to thin out

Instructions

Put potatoes in pot with enough cold water to cover them, and put over medium-high heat. Cook until potatoes are fully cooked and fork tender. Drain potatoes.
Add milk and salt to potatoes and mash. Let cool.
While potatoes are cooling, saute onions and green bell peppers until soft and onions are translucent. Add garlic and saute for about 30 seconds.
Add ground beef, cumin, lime juice, salt and pepper to onion and bell pepper mixture. Cook until ground beef is thoroughly cooked. Let cool.
Combine flour and bread crumbs in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs.
When potato and meat mixtures are both cool, start with the assembly. Place about 2 Tbsp of potato into your hand. Press potatoes into a bowl-shape trying to get it as thin as possible without making any wholes.
Place about 1 Tbsp of meat mixture into the potato bowl. Try to enclose the bowl around the meat mixture. Add additional potato as required to completely enclose the meat mixture.
Repeat the assembly process until you either run out of potatoes or filling. Eat whatever can't be turned into a papas rellena as a snack.
Dip each potato ball into the beaten egg, making sure to coat the whole ball. Then roll the egg-covered potato balls in the bread crumb mixture. When all the potato balls are breaded, you can either proceed to frying them or freeze them for later (I didn't freeze them, but I did refrigerate them to eat at a later time, and they were fine.)
Heat oil in pan to about 375 degrees. When oil is ready, fry the papas rellenas in batches (add a few papas rellenas to the pan at a time so that the oil temperature doesn't drop too fast). Fry them for about 3-5 minutes or until the bottom portion of the papas rellenas is golden brown. Turn them over and fry for about another 3-5 minutes, until golden brown.
Remove cooked papas rellenas to a plate with paper towel to soak up any excess oil. Let cool for a few minutes before eating.
Make Aji Sauce:
Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Add the jalapenos, onion, and garlic to skillet. Cook for about 5-10 minutes until onions and jalapenos are softened.
Add jalapenos, onions, garlic, cilantro, cotija cheese, and about ¼ cup water to blender. Blend. Add more water as required to make smooth and creamy.
refrigerate until ready to use.