08/08/2021
Sunday Van Scran - Malangas
The last dish in our Cuban recipe chapter, Malangas! Delicious balls of goodness crossed between a croquette and a potato rostï, made with malanga, a type of root vegetable similar to taro or yams, and served throughout the day with a cold beer. Malanga is quite hard to get hold of in Tewkesbury so we use sweet potato, not as good but a worthy substitute and serve them with lashing of very garlicky Mayo.
Recipe serves 2
1 large sweet potato
1 egg
Spices/herbs of your choice
Plain flour
Oil for frying
Mayonnaise
Paprika/cayenne pepper
Garlic
1. Peel and grate your sweet potato on the coarse side of your grater. Add some salt to let the water drain from the potato. If you have time/can be bothered let it drain in a sieve for half an hour or so, pressing out the water every so often. If not then squeeze out as much water as you can straight away.
2. Add an egg, season, and bring together to a spoonable mixture, it may need another egg. We add some chopped parsley here but dried thyme, chives, cumin, dried chilli are all good options, use whatever you have!
3. Form into small balls and roll in flour to coat the sweet potato. Set aside on kitchen roll and heat around 2cm of oil in a frying pan to shallow fry your Malangas. If you are low on oil you can form the Malangas into flying saucer shapes and pan fry (but they never taste as good!)
4. While your oil heats up grate a garlic clove (we do one per person but this may be some people’s worst nightmare so adjust to your liking) and mix with mayonnaise, adding a pinch of paprika.
5. Get your oil REALLY HOT. If it’s too cool the Malangas will fall apart and soak up the oil. Fry in small batches till golden brown and firming up, returning to kitchen paper to drain whilst you finish frying them all.
