Directions

• First, dice up pork shoulder and let marinate in apple cider vinegar for about 20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, cut off skin and dice up the smoked ham as well as the salted pork. They should be about 1-inch pieces.
• Put the meats in a dutch oven pot over a medium high flame. Add Sofrito to the pot, stir and cover.
• Now rinse off the pork shoulder with water and drain all the water.
• Add pork to the other meats.
• Add the seasoning to the meat: garlic powder, cumin oregano, salt, Sazon, tomato sauce and achote.
• Mix everything together very well. Cover and cook for 45 minutes and lower the flame.
• While that is cooking, you can prepare the batter: Chop up and grate all the yautia and green bananas. Mix very well. Then add the seasoning for the batter.
• Once the meat is cooked and the batter is made, put parchment paper down and place a banana leaf on it.
• Coat the middle of the leaf with achote.
• Then put a spoonful (a large metal mixing spoon) of batter and then some meat (without any juice) on top of the batter. Place 2 olives and 2 slices of roasted red pepper on top in one straight line.
• Take the bottom of the parchment paper and banana leaf and fold it half way up, then fold down to where you feel the batter. Flip and fold up.
• Then take the sides of your hands to crimp the sides, and then fold so ends are on the bottom of the rectangle.
• Take the string and make it so it loops at the top of the rectangle.
• Take the bottom ends of the string and pull up and through the loop at the top of the rectangle (slip knot).
• Then take ends and wrap around short sides of the rectangle twice and tie off like a shoelace.
• Put 2 Pasteles at a time into a pot of boiling water. Add a pinch of salt, and cover.
• Cook on a low-medium flame for about a ½ hour.
• Be very careful when removing Pasteles from the boiling water! Carefully remove the parchment paper, cut the string, open the banana leaf and enjoy!