Memories of Cuba

When we visited Cuba I enjoyed eating Fritura de Malanga which are fritters made from Taro root. These crispy fritters were often the one and only vegetarian choice bar rice and beans so I ate a lot of them .

Looking through my recipes I came across my notes on Fritura de malangas remembering this sunshine snack. 

Taro doesn’t grow around here but we have plenty of parsnips so I exchanged them and the results were really good and it also cranked up the points for sustainable eating.. The parsnips aren’t as starchy as taro but even though the batters looked very different (I’d done some YouTube snooping) they made excellent fritters. Another bonus from the YouTube snooping was the idea to put some cheese in the middle. We still had a knob of gorganzola left from the xmas cheese board which I thought would partner well with parsnips but I’d say use whatever you have or fancy.

500-600g parsnips

2 cloves garlic

2 eggs

½ tsp salt

About 100g cheese – something that’ll melt

Vegetable oil to fry

Peel the parsnips and grate finely – this is quite slow but it’s what you have to do!

Peel the garlic and chop finely.

Put the grated parsnips, chopped garlic and salt into a bowl then mix in the eggs.

You will have a quite dense paste/batter.

Cut the cheese into small cubes – no bigger than 1cm

Using a dessertspoon take small amounts of the parsnip mix and mould it onto the spoon then using your thumb make an indentation in the middle, pop a piece of cheese in and mould the paste back around the cheese so that it’s completely covered.

Put the fritter/croquette onto a plate and repeat the process until your mix is used up.

Put the fritter/croquette onto a plate and repeat the process until your mix is used up.

Heat 2-3cms vegetable oil in a deep sided frying pan or shallow pot, When it’s hot enough,  a piece of bread should pop to the surface as soon as you drop it in, start frying the fritters. Fry them on a medium heat as they need to cook through. Cook for 3-4 minutes turning them half way. Reduce the heat if they are browning too quickly.

Serve with something to dip – mayonnaise, alioli, or as in Cuba some kind of fruity sauce. I use mango chutney thinned with a little sugar syrup or alioli.