Pasteles

makes 36. Mash chili peppers, cilantro, garlic, oregano and salt in mortar. Wash and dry pork rapidly and cut into very small cubes. Mix cubes with the sour orange juice. Add mashed ingredients, chili peppers, cilantro, garlic, oregano and salt to meat. Add cubed ingredients, cured ham, tomatoes, green pepper and onion and the seeded raisins and mix all together. Add water to the chick peas and heat rapidly to boiling. Drain the liquid over the meat mixture. Remove skins from chick peas and add chick peas to meat. Add olives and capers, together with the liquid from jar of capers, to mixture. Wash and drain the achiote seeds. Heat lard with the achiote seeds and when lard is melted strain out seeds. Add 6 tablespoons of this melted lard to the meat and put aside the rest to be used in the masas of the pasteles. Mix well, cover and set aside until the masa is ready. Masa 4 pounds white yautia, pared (tanier, the starchy roots of a tropical large leaved plant. The flesh is usually creamy white or yellow and is similar in flavor and texture to mealy Irish or Idaho potato. 4 pounds yellow yautia, pared 15 green bananas, peeled 2 cups lukewarm milk achiote lard reserved when filling was made 2 1/2 tablespoons salt Wash, drain and grate Yautia and bananas and pound all together in a mortar or blend in an electric blender to make a smooth paste. Stir in luke warm milk gradually. Add the achiote lard and salt, mix well, cover and set aside to make the pasteles. Use 20 bundles of plantain leaves (parchment cooking paper may be used in place of plantain leaves). They should be long and wide. With a knife, remove the spines in the center to give greater flexibility to the leaves. Divide leaves into pieces about 12 inches square. Wash and clean leaves with a damp cloth. Place 3 tablespoons of the masa on a leaf and spread it out so thinly that is is almost transparent. Place 3 tablespoons of the filling in the center of the masa. Fold the leaf one half over the other to make a top and bottom layer of plantain leaf and enclose the contents in it. fold it over once more. Fold the right and left ends of the leaf toward the center. wrap in a second leaf place on the diagonal. Tie the pasteles together in pairs with a string, placing folded edges facing each other. (You should now have a rectangle with string going once around the long length and 3 times across so that you have about 8 fairly even squares outlined with the string.) In a large vessel heat to boiling for each 12 pasteles, 5 quarts water with 3 1/2 tablespoons salt. Add Pasteles and boil, covered, for 1 hour. After half an hour turn them over in the water. When cooking period is finished, remove pasteles from the water at once.