Recipe courtesy of Roberto Treviño

Turkey Pasteles with Cranberry Escabeche

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Ingredients

Filling:

Cranberry Sauce Escabeche:

Directions

  1. Filling: Start by heating Anato seed oil in pan, cook onions and red peppers until soft and translucent. Add minced garlic. Once cooked, pour in tomato juice. Add chopped cilantro, green olives, and pulled turkey meat. Simmer on very low heat for 20 min. Turn off the heat and let your filling cool completely. Save dried cranberries for the assembly.
  2. Masa: Using the micro-grater attachment of a box grater, grate the Yautia, Green Plantains, Yuka and Pumpkin into a large mixing bowl. The consistency should be that of a loose dough or grits. Add your salt and anato oil, and mix well.
  3. Cranberry Sauce Escabeche: 
  4. Lightly cook the onions in the olive oil, until almost translucent; add peppercorns, olive oil, and bay leaf. Simmer for about 10 min. Add 3/4 of the can of the cranberry sauce once cooled, and mix lightly to break down the cranberry a bit. Let stand for 30 minutes. Serve chilled or at room temperature on top of the Pasteles.
  5. Assembly:
  6. Cut a piece of parchment paper about 10 inches by 5 inches. Cut two pieces of banana leaf about 8 inches by 4 inches. Lay the parchment paper on a flat work surface, so that it looks like a horizontal rectangle. Place one of the cut banana leafs in the center of the parchment paper. Brush a few drops of anato oil onto the center of the banana leaf. This adds color and flavor while preventing the masa (dough) from sticking. Place about 1 1/2 to 2 spoon fulls of masa onto the oil in the center of the banana leaf. Flatten and spread out the dough evenly, but do not go over the edge of the leaf. Place one spoon full of Turkey filling in the center of the dough. Sprinkle on a small amount of the dried cranberries on top of the filling Place another spoonful of masa (dough) on top of the meat filling. Spread the masa evenly to cover the filling. Brush a few drops of achiote oil on one side of the second piece of banana leaf. Place the leaf, oiled side down, on top of the masa. 
  7. Bring the top edge and bottom edge of the parchment paper up so that the edges meet evenly over the top of the pastele. Fold or roll down the edges, forming a horizontal seam. Fold up the ends of the parchment paper and flip the wrapped pastele over. 
  8. Cut a piece of kitchen string about 20 inches long. Fold it in half. Lay the string on your work surface so that the middle of the string is at the top, in an upside down u-shape. The open ends should be closest to you. Place the pastele horizontally on top of the string. Take the two ends of the string, closest to you, and fold them up and over the pastele. Then tuck the ends under the u-shaped end, farthest away from you. Without crossing the strings at the top, gently pull the string ends down toward the ends of the pastele. Flip the pastele and bring the string around the ends of the pastele. Tie the string in the middle. Flip the pastele over one last time. Bring the string around the middle. Tie the string into a not or bow. Your wrapped pastele is now ready to cook.
  9. Stack all your pasteles in a tall pot with 2 liters of water and simmer on low heat for 45 min to an hour with a lid. 
  10. Remove Pasteles from pot, unwrap, and serve with a spoon full of the Cranberry Escabeche.