Cassava-based dishes

A great variety of cassava-based dishes are consumed in the regions where cassava (manioc, Manihot esculenta) is cultivated, and they include many national or ethnic specialities.

As a food ingredient, cassava root is somewhat similar to the potato, in that, like the potato, it is starchy, inedible when raw, and bland in flavor when cooked. Indeed, cassava can replace the potato in many dishes and can be prepared in similar ways – it can be boiled, mashed, fried or baked. Unlike the potato, however, cassava is mostly a tropical crop, and its peculiar characteristics have led to some unique recipes, such as sweet puddings, which have no common potato version. In some parts of the world (chiefly in Africa, Indonesia, and the Philippines), cassava leaves are also cooked and eaten as a vegetable.

Raw cassava, especially the bitter varieties, contain cyanogenic glycosides and normally need to be prepared with some combination of boiling, fermenting, or sun drying to avoid the possibility of cyanide poisoning.

In many Caribbean islands, cassava flour is made into a round-shaped flat bread called casabe or "cassava bread".

Cassava is a staple of Cuban cuisine. Besides casabe bread, it is prepared as a side dish – boiled, covered with raw onion rings and sizzling garlic-infused olive oil. It is also boiled, then cut into strips and fried to make yuca frita (similar to French fries). Yuca is also one of the main ingredients in a traditional Cuban stew called ajiaco, along with potatoes, malanga, boniato (sweet potato), plantain, ñame, corn and other vegetables. Cuban buñuelos, a local variation of a traditional Spanish fritter (similar to the French beignet), is made with cassava and sweet potato instead of flour. These are fried and topped off with anisette-flavored sugar syrup. Yuca chips "chicharritas de yuca" are often consumed as a side dish or a snack. These chips are deep fried thin rings of the root. When deep fried vegetables, such us potatoes, sweet potatoes, yuca and plantain are cut in a transversal way resulting in almost perfectly round chips they are called "chicharritas". [2] Traditional Cuban Churros where historically prepared with yuca paste and that is the way is still made in most Cuban households [3], however must churro making street carts and cafeterias in the island and in Miami use Yuca flour to create the dough nowadays [4].

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Wikipedia