Puerto Rican Pasteles with Keigh Crespo
You’ve heard of tamales. But have you had the pleasure of trying pasteles? Keigh Crespo of Dos Abuelas can’t get enough of this delicious Puerto Rican staple
In Puerto Rico, you can find pasteles year round. However, in New York, Puerto Rican communities have made this a holiday season tradition due to the fact that making pasteles is a long and involved task. Pasteles are generally plantain or yucca based, though Keigh prefers plantains herself. To make them, first you boil and mash green plantains to get a soft texture. Plantain leaves are spread out on a table, and the plantain is spread on the leaves and filled with protein. Typical proteins used include pork, chicken, garbanzo beans, or raisins. Then, the pasteles are wrapped, tied, and boiled for 40 minutes.
Keigh is a former pastel skeptic and laughs about the first time she tried pasteles as a preteen. A self-proclaimed picky eater as a kid, she watched her mom and aunts make them for years before her mom finally convinced her to try half of one. She was hooked right away, and had to try them with ketchup and hot sauce on top like her aunts were doing. Her consensus? She was a fan of the pastel and hot sauce combo, but could pass on the ketchup.
“What I loved to see was the process of it. You have your whole family working together. They’re talking and gossiping and one is mashing, one is getting the palm leaves ready, the other is getting the pork ready. You create something together and it tastes so good,” Keigh reflects. There is an essence of community and family that one finds in eating pasteles, and Keigh is excited to share this with the Denver community.
Food is powerful- it connects us to our heritage, our families, and places we hold dear. Puerto Ricans can be anywhere in the world, yet when they taste pasteles they are transported home. When Keigh cooks, she invokes the presence of her two Puerto Rican grandmothers, whom she named her food truck after and who taught her to cook. Keigh hopes to share this spirit with those that come to her class: taking people to Puerto Rico without a flight and continuing to educate Denver about Caribbean cuisine.
Sign up here for Keigh’s pastel-making class on December 14th at 10am at RISE Westwood as a part of Re:Vision’s holiday kitchen series. And don’t worry- she’ll bring ketchup and hot sauce so that you can come to your own conclusions!