Admittedly the
food I know as an
alcapuria cannot be bought on every
street corner in
Puerto Rico, but I was surprised to learn that the word also meant "slave," which
hotthamir tells us in his w/u. The
association between "slave" and this
food will probably take some thought.
As best as I can
analyze it, an alcapuria starts out with either grated plátino ( = plantain]s: those big
bananas with a
glandular problem) or
yucca, which looks a bit like a
potato. For
color and a
unique flavor people add something called
achiotina, which is left over after you fry
achiote ( = annotto)
seeds and then throw the seeds out. This is all mushed up until it looks like the
classical gup.
Put that to one side and in a a
large frying
pan make the
picadillo, a bunch of seasoned ground meat; cooks tell me that a
combination of
pork and
beef works the best. Add at will a couple tablespoons
sofrito, the
secret ingredient of all Puerto Rican cooking, a combination of
capers and green
olives, a couple
cilantro leaves ( =
coriander), some finely chopped
tomatoes (drained) and maybe some finely chopped
onions and
garlic. Fry this up until it's fairly dry.
Now comes the fun part. Somehow
balls of picadillo are wrapped up in the plátino
mixture and
compressed. so they won't fall apart while they are being deep
fried. The
color becomes almost a deep
chocolate brown when they are done. The best I've had come from the
Plaza de Mercado ( = farmers' market) in Río Piedras, near the University of Puerto Rico. The second best come from the Kioskos ( = outdoor
food stands) outside a famous beach in Luquillo.