Dominican Arepitas
If you going learn how to cook Dominican style, arepitas are a recipe you can’t go without. They are usually not eaten as commonly as rice and beans, but they are definitely essential to the Dominican diet.
Dominican Arepitas – You will be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t like these little deep fried yucca balls. And as long as you are pay attention they are pretty hard to mess up.
1 pound of yucca* – in Spanish – yuca
1 egg – in Spanish – huevo
1 teaspoon butter– in Spanish – mantequilla
anis seed (to taste) – in Spanish – anis
¼ teaspoon salt – in Spanish – sal
pinch of sugar – in Spanish – asucar
- Peel yucca and wash any dirt off.
- Grind the yucca (for arepitas, shreading or grating is not small enough, so I usually use a spice grinder)
- Mix yucca with other ingredients.
- With a tablespoon, scoop out spoon sized portions of the batter and deep fry it like a French fry. You want to keep the oil temperature moderate. (under cooking the arepitas will result in bitterness and cooking the outside past golden brown will result in bitterness.)
You can also try this recipe. It is the recipe that I prefer. It is much less common, but also taught to me by a Dominican. Results in a meat like flavor.
1 pound of yucca* – in Spanish – yuca
1 egg – in Spanish – huevo
¼ cup of milk – in Spanish – leche
1 teaspoon butter – in Spanish – mantequilla
½ a green bell pepper (minced) – in Spanish – aji
½ an onion (minced) – in Spanish – saboya
1 garlic clove (minced) – in Spanish – ajo
3 sprouts cilantro (minced) – in Spanish – cilantro (cilantrico is preferable)
1 cube of chicken bouillon (pounded to a powder) – in Spanish – sopita
*Yuca can be a little harder to come by in the US. If you don’t have any South American markets near by, you can try Raley’s or Safeway. They usually have a pretty good variety of produce from around the world.