How I Make Peruvian Beef Potato Croquettes

I’m a fan of Netflix’s Street Food TV Series. Well, actually, I watch almost all Netflix reality shows about food because as a foodie, I naturally enjoy learning about them. Street Food: Asia and Street Food: Latin America are few of the documentaries that interest me because I got to explore cultural cuisines and street dishes around the world. Aside from the street food itself, the documentary features street food vendors and their history, which is intertwined with the big picture of how influential street food is on their native country.

The last episode of Street Food: Latin America presents some native chows of La Paz, Bolivia, which includes Papa Rellena of Rellenos de Dona Emi, small food carts owned by Emiliana Condori. She’s known for perfecting the recipes since she was a child. She now has four carts that move around the city center. 

Papa Rellena or Relleno de Papa is a fried mashed potato, similar to croquettes, filled with stewed beef meat. The street food is famous not just in Bolivia, but also in large part of South America. In fact, the dish originated in Peru.

I thought of recreating Papa Rellena because I still have leftover mashed potato from last week’s Corned Beef Cottage Pie. For those who are making from the scratch, I’ll repost my method of making mashed potato.

1. Prepare all the ingredients needed.

• 1/2 kilo ground beef
• 2 potatoes
• 1 grated cheddar cheese
• 2 tbsp margarine
• nutmeg
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce 
• 1 beef bouillon 
• carrots
• green peas
• corn kernels
• oil
• 1 onion head
• 3 cloves of garlic
• salt
• pepper

2. Make the mashed potato by peeling and cutting potatoes into small cubes.

3. Boil until they’re tender to mash.

4. Strain the potatoes from the water and using the same strainer, mash the potatoes with margarine or butter.

5. Add the grated cheddar cheese in the mashing process.

6. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

7. Knead with a half cup of flour to make it less sticky. Set this aside.

8. Chop onion and garlic.

9. Cut carrots into small cubes and combine with green peas and corn kernels. This frozen mixed vegetable is available in our market so I just bought that.

10. My ground beef was still quite frozen so i cooked it first with a small amount of water. You can skip this step.

11. Once the water got drained, add oil and the middle and sauté with onion and garlic.

12. Flavor with fish sauce and mix.

13. Pour the tomato sauce and mix.

14. Make a hole in the middle and pour a small amount of water and melt beef bouillon. Cover and let this simmer for 15 minutes at low heat.

15. Mix in carrot cubes, green peas and corn kernels.

16. Get a spoonful of mashed potato dough and flatten on your hand.

17. Fill this with the ground beef mixture.

18. Close the dough making balls of croquettes. 

19. I also dunk them in a bowl of flour so they won’t stick.

20. Deep fry these balls until golden brown.

21. Your Papa Rellena is now done and ready to be served.