I was thumbing through Veganomicon looking for recipes to make when I came across a recipe for grilled yuca tortillas. Yuca, or cassava as it’s sometimes called, is a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae, or spurge family. It’s native to South America, grows exclusively in tropical climates and it’s an excellent source of carbohydrates. For this recipe we were able to use most of the leftover ingredients from yesterday’s Black Bean Soup and just about everything else we needed we already had in the kitchen.
The only ingredient we needed to shop for was the yuca which we were able to find in the local market. A half-kilo cost 14 pesos (about $1.12). In case you’re wondering, the word for yuca in Spanish is yuca – same as in English – easy, right? I’ll admit, I was a little intimidated when I first saw the yuca in its original uncooked form, but the recipe turned out great and it was surprisingly easy to make.
This is what the yuca looked like when we brought it home from the market. We chopped it into a few pieces and let it boil for 25-30 minutes until the outer layer began to peel apart and the inside was soft.
Once the yuca was soft we mashed it up until it resembled mashed potatoes. We used most of the veggies we had left over from the black bean soup recipe, sautéed them with some garlic and combined them with the mashed yuca to make the filling for the tortillas.
Finally, we brushed whole wheat tortillas with olive oil, filled them with the yuca and veggie mixture and grilled them in a hot skillet for a minute or two on each side. The entire recipe took around 45 minutes to prepare.
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Thank you for this post! I really didn’t know yuca was the same as cassava and therefor I never amde those tortillas. I can get cassava here.
Lovely! I tasted yuca for the first time ever last night, thanks to my self-challenge to try new ingredients for MoFo. They were absolutely amazing fried up as chips, but I ate a couple of pieces just after they were boiled and they were so buttery and sweet. I’m hooked, and now I have to give this recipe a try!
I’ll definitely have to give yuca chips a try, they sound delicious!
Great post and photos Laura! I’ve had yucca in a couple of forms, but never in this one you’ve shared with us here….looks yummy! A few years ago I had cassava bread in Honduras. It’s quite popular there, especially with the Garifuna culture of the Caribbean. I’ve also had the Filipino dessert called “bibingka” which is made with rice flour, coconut and yuca…very tasty! Again, really nice photos and post….I’m a sucker for food posts!
Thanks Mark! The bibingka sounds delicious. It’s been a lot of fun trying out new recipes and I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying the posts!
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