Nuegados de Yucca y Masa is a traditional Salvadorean (from El Salvador) recipe for a classic dessert of fried cassava and maize flour dumplings with cheese served in a sweet panela sauce. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Salvadorean version of: Nuegados de Yucca y Masa.
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This is a dessert recipe from El Salvador for sweet cassava and fine maize flour dumplings served with a sweet sauce made with panela.
Note that the Panela called for in this recipe is an unrefined whole cane sugar, typical of Latin America. It is a solid form of sucrose derived from the boiling and evaporation of sugar-cane juice. In essence it’s the South American form of Indian jaggery and jaggery can be substituted at a pinch.
Note that, biologically, casava tubers aren't tubers at all... rather they're aerial storage roots.
Ingredients:
For the Dumplings:
1 cassava {yucca) tuber
2 eggs, whisked
1/2 tsp baking powder
125g of Cuajada Fresca cheese
1 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of white sugar
65g of masa flour
oil, for frying
For the Sweet Sauce:
1/2 bar of Panela
500ml of water
1–5 cinnamon sticks, depending on how much you like cinnamon
Method:
For Assembling and Frying the Nuegados: Using a sharp knife, pare off the skin from the cassava. Now, using a potato peeler shave the cassava vertically along its length until you've whittled it down to its woody core (discard this).
Take the cassava shavings and place in a blender, rendering to a smooth paste.
Scrape this paste into a bowl and using your hands mix in the eggs, salt, baking powder, sugar, maize flour and cheese. This is your nuegado.
Shape the nuegado mixture into small balls using your hands.
Set a heavy-based frying pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to a depth of a few centimetres. Once the oil is hot add in the nuegado balls and cook for about 2–3 minutes per side, until the dough is cooked through and a dark golden brown all over.
Transfer the fried nuegados to a plate covered with kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil.
For the sweet sauce: Combine 500ml water, the panela and cinnamon sticks in a saucepan. Set over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, for about 30 minutes, or until the sugar has completely dissolved and the sauce has thickened.
At this point take the sauce off the heat, arrange the nuegados in a bowl and pour over the hot sauce.
Serve immediately, accompanied by any left over sweet sauce in a bowl
