Cuban Deep-fried Stuffed Mashed Potatoes

Me: The gravy was a bit much but it worked. Really went well with the mashed potatoes and biscuits. Had an oddly spicy "comfort food" feel to it. Not satisfied with sausage gravy as being a suitable dipping sauce... next time will try something with cilantro. Mint? Brown Sugar? Think it came out better last time using a Sriracha marinade that I made for cooking a pork shoulder. Maybe I'll add cilantro to that... and make it creamy. Lemongrass? Mango & Habanero?

Bob: Arg, sausage gravy doesn't go with potatoes! It's too much starch. But, I ate as many as I could! Arg, the biscuits were delicious, too!

Tab: The sausage gravy was my idea. Moving forward any attempt to make this dish sans sausage gravy will be compared to my very own recipe: Papas Rellenas de Tab. But, I've never made sausage gravy or Cuban Deep-fried Mashed Potatoes before. Fuck you, I could make them if I wanted. I'm a boss!

Zelda the Princess: Woof, woof. I ate it. I eat everything.

Ingredients:

Mashed Potatoes:

• Red skin potatoes
• 3 egg yolks
• ~1/2 cup heavy cream, or milk
• 3 Tbl. butter
• 4 cloves garlic, whole
• 1 tsp. cumin (optional)
• 2 tsp. oregano(optional)
• 2 Tbl. cracked black pepper
• Kosher salt, to taste

Picadillo:

• 1 lb. ground sirloin, or round
• 1 large white onion, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. red pepper
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. Sriracha
• 2 Tbl. cracked black pepper
• Kosher salt, to taste
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup pimento stuffed olives, drained & chopped
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 1 lime (optional)
• Capers, to taste (optional)
• Raisins, to taste (optional)

Misc:

• Bread crumbs
• All purpose flour
• Vegetable oil
• Eggs

Sausage Gravy:

• 1 lb. breakfast sausage
• 1 McCormick sausage flavored country gravy packet, or similar brand.
• Spices, to taste.

Biscuits:

• Pillsbury Grands! Mini Biscuits
• Honey
• Brown Sugar

Notes:

Just relax. I know that looks like a ton of things, and this is supposed to be a beginners blog, but trust me. This is easy! You're basically cooking four different things, that are all easy to cook, and then putting them together at the end.  The biscuits and gravy are premade! All you're doing is making some mashed potatoes, and frying up some ground beef with some spices. No. Big. Deal.

Despite how many items you see on this list, it is actually an incredibly cheap dish to make that will only cost you about $20 once you have a well stocked spice cupboard and it has a great yield that will serve 10. Just relax, write a list, and make sure you have everything you need and aren't going to run out in the middle of cooking. You may choose to make this over two days, cooking the beef & potatoes on one day, and then coming back to fry them the next day.

You may also desire to increase the amount of spices used. I tend to go a bit heavier as I enjoy spicier foods, but be careful if you are a novice. It is always easy to add more at the end to make it spicier and you don't want to ruin your dish by over-spicing it early on. This is particularly sage advice when it comes to using salt!

I find it helpful to peel, cut, and separate everything I need for a recipe before I actually start cooking. So in this case what I would do is peel the potatoes and clean the garlic, organize my ingredients for the mashed potatoes, then chop the onions, garlic, and olives and organize the ingredients for cooking the beef.

Ideally you want to be cooking the potatoes and beef at the same time, but if this is too much for you then don't worry. Just do one at a time starting with the potatoes.  

"Right, so, all I'm doing here is making mashed potatoes and browning up some beef. Then I'm going to put them both in the refrigerator, and when they're cool roll them out into balls and deep-fry them. Sausage gravy and biscuits both come in a package, they're easy, I can do those last or skip them entirely if I want. This is going to be a piece of cake." - Game Planning

"All I have to do is cut up an onion, garlic, and some olives? That should take about 20 minutes to do, I'll fill the stock pot with water now and put it on the heat now to save time. This is going to be simple. I know how to season beef and make mashed potatoes." - Game Planning

"I wonder how long it's going to take to refrigerate the potatoes and beef before I can roll them into balls? This might take longer than I thought. Maybe I'll leave them in the fridge overnight and make this for dinner tomorrow. I'll order a pizza tonight." - Game Planning

Technique:

Mashed Potatoes:

1. Peel and cut potatoes into quarters. The more the merrier, just so long as you have a pot big enough to cook them all in. If not, use two.
2. Peel your garlic! 
3. Clean the garlic further by cutting the ends off four cloves. No big deal, just cut a thin slice off the top and bottom to get rid of the "icky" parts. Keep whole.
4. Fill stock pot with enough water to completely submerge poatoes and add garlic. 
5. Place on high heat and boil until cooked fully. About 15 to 20 minutes. TIP: Poke the potatoes with a fork. If it can stick through easily, like it's a baked potato, then it's finished. PROTIP: Put the water on boil while you peel and quarter your potatoes, then add them straight into the boiling water. This saves time!
6. Drain water. If you've never done this before, fear not! Put a colander in the sink and just pour the potatoes into it. After the water has drained you can dump the potatoes back in. TIP: If you don't have a colander then just relax, put a kitchen glove on and grab a plate (or use the lid) - place it on top of the pot and then tilt it over the sink and let the water drain. Retain the garlic.
7. Add the butter, oregano, cumin, salt, pepper, egg yolks and milk.
8. Mash! TIP: Do not do this in the colander. Either do it in the pot that they were cooked in, or a large bowl. For this particular recipe it does not matter if they are chunky or smooth, although for the Holidays this is something that you're going to want to pay attention to.
9. Cover and place in fridge to cool. TIP: Throw it in the freezer if you want to move things along quickly!  

NOTE: How to separate egg yolks! Save the egg whites for later!

Picadillo:

1. Preheat your skillet. TIP: Place skillet onto burner and turn on to medium heat and leave for several minutes. The goal is for the pan to be hot enough for the Maillard reaction to take place.
2. Very lightly drizzle some oil into the bottom of the pan and make sure it is evenly spread and thin.
3. Add package of ground beef. Do not break apart. Turn up heat and let sit for approximately 1 minute (more if pan is not properly heated, less if pan is overheated) or until there is a light brown crust. Flip and repeat.
4. Begin breaking up the ground beef using a wooden spoon and turning constantly. As the water content of the beef begins to evaporate you will want to reduce the temperature of the burner. NOTE: In the last step you turned the heat up because when you added the beef to the pan it brought the pan's temperature down and you wanted to turn the heat up to make sure the pan stays a nice uniform temperature. In this step you are turning it down for the same reason. This is part of the "art" of cooking.
   
5. Season beef with the cumin, chili powder, red pepper, black pepper, oregano, salt, and paprika. Continuing stirring on high heat until lightly browned.
6. Turn up the heat and add the onions. Repeat the technique describe above between steps 3 & 4 and turn the heat down once the water content from the onions is mostly removed.
7. Add garlic & chopped olives. Continue browning on low heat and allowing all of the water/juices to evaporate. Stir regularly. Add capers & raisins if using them.
8. Increase the temperature and get the pan hot while stirring constantly. When sizzling add the wine and cook on high until boiling. Reduce to medium heat and allow wine to almost completely cook off.
9. Add warm water to tomato paste (in a bowl) and stir until thick. Increase temperature again and stir vigorously while adding tomato product to beef. Continue stirring until well blended and then reduce temperature to low. NOTE: If you are using a fattier type of meat you may want to drain the excess oil in the pan before mixing in the tomato product. Conversely speaking if you are using a very lean type of beef you may wish to add a small amount of water during step #5.
10. Add Sriracha and continue to stir being careful not to scrape the bottom of the pan. Allow to simmer on low until the tomato product has reduced to the desired thickness OPTIONAL: Add 1 bay leaf and stir in small amounts of the brine from the jar of olives and allow to simmer for at least one hour.
11. Remove from heat and squeeze the juice from half of a lime over the beef before putting in the refrigerator to cool. Beef should have the consistency of a Sloppy Joe recipe.

Rolling: 

1. When cool to touch remove the potatoes and picadillo from the refrigerator.
2. Take a small amount of mashed potatoes in the palm of your hand and begin to roll into a ball, flattening it out into a round pancake that is evenly thick. 
3. Take a smaller amount of beef and place it into the center of the potato, working it together tightly.
4. Fold the potato up around the beef and begin to roll. Do not worry if some of the beef reaches the surface of the ball.
5. Refrigerate until cool (optional, if necessary) 
6. Roll in flour.
7. Submerge in mixture of egg whites and milk.
1. See imgur album at the end of this post. Just take your egg whites, splash in some milk, and whisk it up. Or don't use the egg whites! Just use milk! Or whisk up a few whole eggs and use the yolks. It doesn't matter!
8. Roll in breadcrumbs.
9. Refrigerate until cool (optional, if necessary) 

Biscuits & Gravy:

1. Follow directions on respective packages. I enjoy putting a small amount of honey, brown sugar, and oregano on the biscuits before baking them.
2. I also added 1lb of sausage to the recipe on the package. Browned identically to how the beef was cooked for the picadillo, then following the recipe afterwards. I added additional spices to this to make it spicy, specifically cumin and red pepper.

Frying:

1. Preheat skillet to medium high and fill halfway with oil.
2. When hot, fry until golden brown. Using a pair of tongs rotate and make sure that all sides are fried evenly. NOTE: Careful not to overcook. These will "melt" and become difficult to remove from the pan. Use a kitchen spoon if necessary and place on paper towels when finished. 
3. Serve.

Please see this imgur album for more pictures & information! Sorry for the crappy camera!