Yuca Frita (Colombian Cassava Fries)

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Cassava boiled with garlic until it cracks open, then cut into batons and fried. The boiling is not optional: cassava fried from raw stays hard in the middle. Half an hour, and it serves four.

Prep Time5

Cook Time25

Total Time30

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: Colombian

Keyword: cassava fries, yuca fries, yucca fries

Servings:

Calories: 365kcal

Author: Angela Giraldo

Ingredients

1 ½ pounds cassava fresh or frozen; frozen comes peeled and cored, which saves the hardest part
Water, enough to cover
2 cloves garlic, minced they go into the boiling water, not the oil
Salt, to taste some in the water, more at the end
Oil, for frying

Instructions

Peel the cassava, removing both the waxy brown skin and the pink layer underneath, and cut it into pieces about three inches long. Split each piece lengthways and pull out the woody core running through the middle: it never softens, however long you boil it.
Put the cassava in a medium saucepan, cover with water, and add the garlic and a little salt.
Cover and bring to the boil over high heat. Once it boils, turn it down and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until the pieces crack open and a knife goes through without resistance.
Drain the cassava and let it dry off for a few minutes. The drier it is, the less the oil will spit.
Heat the oil, and when it is hot fry the cassava for about five minutes, until golden.
Lift them out onto kitchen paper.
Salt them while they are still hot and serve straight away.

Notes

Boiling first is what separates this from a chip that comes out hard. Cassava is dense and starchy, and fried from raw the outside burns long before the middle cooks, which is the same reason patacones are fried twice. If you want them crisper, let the boiled cassava cool completely, even overnight in the fridge, before it goes into the oil. And never taste it raw: raw cassava contains compounds that release cyanide, which boiling removes completely. In Colombia these are served with ají, with suero costeño on the coast, or with plain tomato sauce.

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