Amazing Avocado Cornmeal Puerto Rican Stuffed "Sorullitos"
Amazing Avocado Cornmeal Puerto Rican Stuffed "Sorullitos"
When it comes to choosing recipes for our classes, we ask ourselves these things: What’s going to be different, fun, and give the kids the greatest chance at innovation and exposure to a variety of ingredients in our short, one-hour classes? We also think about our wonderful Chef Instructors and choose things we hope they’ll love to create in their classrooms and maybe even at home. How can we get kids involved in every step of the recipe? We all love to use our hands when learning, and this recipe offers precisely that! Kids will get their hands sticky when they flatten and shape the cornmeal dough for their very own Stuffed Sorullitos, pronounced “Soh-roo-yee-toes”—a Puerto Rican corn fritter typically shaped like a torpedo. Plus, kid chefs will make their own Avocado-Cilantro salsa however they want, using a bunch of yummy, fresh, and healthy ingredients. Why do we think your kids will love Sorullitos? Because Puerto Rican kids often buy them from street vendors as an after-school treat!
Happy & Healthy Cooking,
Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills
- dice :
to cut foods into small pieces of equal size so that the food is cooked evenly or looks uniform and pleasant when used in the recipe.
- grate :
to reduce food, like a carrot, to very small shreds or pieces of the same size by rubbing it on a tool with an outside surface that has holes with cutting edges (a grater).
- stuff :
to fill the cavity of a food with another food, like a fruit or vegetable or a savory, sweet, or bread mixture, usually before cooking.
Equipment Checklist
Ingredients
Amazing Avocado Cornmeal Puerto Rican Stuffed "Sorullitos"
- 1 T butter (or olive oil)
- 3 T sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 C cornmeal (preferably finely ground!)
- 1 small ripe avocado
- 5 oz cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese **(for DAIRY ALLERGY omit or sub dairy-free cheese, like Daiya brand)**
- 2 to 3 T olive oil for cooking
Food Allergen Substitutions
Amazing Avocado Cornmeal Puerto Rican Stuffed "Sorullitos"
- Dairy: Omit cheese or substitute dairy-free cheese and substitute olive oil for butter in Sorullitos.
Instructions
Amazing Avocado Cornmeal Puerto Rican Stuffed "Sorullitos"
measure + stir + simmer
Measure 2 cups of water, 1 tablespoon butter, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and add to a cold skillet. Stir and bring to a simmer! Add 1 cup of cornmeal to the skillet and stir until it dissolves. Add the last 1/2 cup of cornmeal to your skillet, turn off the heat, and stir. Cornmeal dough will be soft and a little sticky, not too watery or stiff. Scoop cornmeal dough into a mixing bowl and save your skillet for frying.
dice + shred + add + mix
Dice 1 avocado (after cutting down the equator, twisting, and scooping out the flesh!). Shred 5 ounces of cheddar cheese. Add shredded cheese to the cornmeal dough and mix it in!
flatten + stuff + hide
Break off a golf ball-sized piece of cornmeal and flatten it in your hands. Tip: dip your hands in water before touching the dough—this will help prevent it from sticking to your hands as you shape your Sorullitos! Press a piece of diced avocado into the middle of your dough cake. Wrap the dough around the avocado to hide it! Repeat until you've used all of your cornmeal dough.
heat + flatten + fry
Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil to your skillet. Heat the oil, then add your dough balls to the skillet carefully! Use a spatula to flatten them as they fry. When one side is golden brown, flip to fry the other side. Rest the Sorullitos on a paper towel-lined plate as you fry the rest in batches. Top with Kid-Made Avocado Cilantro Salsa and ENJOY!
Hi! I’m Avocado!
"Hola! (Hello!) My name is Avocado, and I'm so happy to be an ingredient in your dish! Avocados can be sliced or chopped and presented naturally, or you can mash us and add lime or lemon juice, salt, cilantro, garlic, onions, jalapeños, and other seasonings to make Guacamole! The citrus juice provides flavor and also keeps us from turning brown in the air. Did you know that avocados are sometimes called Alligator Pears due to our pear-like shape and green skin?"
History
- Avocados originated in Mexico and Central America, where Spanish is the national language. Their history dates back 7,000 years. Avocado in Spanish is “aguacate!”
- Avocados are now popular all over the globe and are used in all types of recipes! Most of our avocados are grown in Mexico and California. Avocado trees grow best in mild, warm climates with moderate humidity. They don't like cold weather.
- The most popular avocado is the "Hass." All Hass avocados are descendants of a "mother tree" that grew in the backyard of a man's house in California.
Anatomy & Etymology
- Avocados have a seed or pit! Botanically speaking, that makes them a fruit! So, technically, avocados are berries. Berry interesting, no?
- Avocados come in different shapes, from oval to pear, depending on the variety. The skin looks like fine leather, which helps them to withstand the fierce Mexican sun. It's not edible and is durable enough to protect the ripening avocado flesh inside.
- Some have smooth skin, while others have a rougher, more pebbled appearance. Most are glossy green, while a few varieties turn purplish-black when ripe. But regardless of the exterior, all have a large, inedible seed surrounded by the soft, buttery, creamy-white to greenish-yellow flesh on the inside, with a delicate nutty taste!
- The word "avocado" comes from the mid-17th century Spanish "aguacate," from the Nahuatl "ahuacatl," which has been combined with other words, such as "ahuacamolli," meaning avocado soup or sauce. That is how we get the word "guacamole."
How to Pick, Buy, & Eat
- Avocados grow on big evergreen trees with a beautiful crown of smooth, glossy, dark green leaves that shade the avocados from the sun. Avocados mature slowly and steadily on the tree but put off ripening until picked. One tree can produce 150 to 500 avocados per year.
- Avocado trees grow best in mild, warm climates with moderate humidity. They don’t like cold weather.
- How to properly peel an avocado: The method you use to peel an avocado can make a difference to your health. Research has shown that the greatest concentration of carotenoids in avocado occurs in the dark green flesh that lies just beneath the skin. Therefore, you don't want to slice into that dark green portion any more than necessary when peeling an avocado. For this reason, the best method is what the California Avocado Commission has called the "nick and peel" method. In this method, you peel the avocado with your hands in the same way you would peel a banana. The first step in the nick-and-peel method is to cut into the avocado lengthwise, producing two long avocado halves that are still connected in the middle by the seed. Next, you take hold of both halves and twist them in opposite directions until they naturally separate. At this point, remove the seed and cut each of the halves lengthwise to produce long quartered sections of the avocado. Finally, use your thumb and index finger to grip the edge of the skin on each quarter and peel it off, just as you would do with a banana skin. The result is a peeled avocado that contains most of that dark green outermost flesh that is so rich in carotenoid antioxidants!
- Avocado is delicious mashed and spread on toast, chopped and added to salsas, sliced and fanned across salads, and diced and added to soups. In addition, avocado can be breaded and fried and stuffed into tacos, mashed or whipped and added to desserts (like cakes and puddings (yum!), and, of course, used as a base for countless varieties of guacamole.
Nutrition
- Good fat! Avocado is one of only a few fruits to contain fat—the special kind that’s really good for you and keeps you healthy. It’s a source of essential fatty acids and is mostly the same kind of healthy fat found in olive oil. What body part needs this type of fat?! The brain!
- Vitamin E keeps our blood healthy!
- B Vitamins help our bodies make energy!
- Fiber helps to reduce blood cholesterol levels and fight heart disease!
- The most nutrition in an avocado is the part of the flesh that’s closest to the peel! This darker green flesh has particular nutrients called carotenoids. The Guinness Book of World Records calls the Avocado the most nutritious fruit known to man!
What are Sorullitos?
- Sorullitos (soh-roo-YEE-toes) are fritters or fried snacks made of cornmeal, commonly eaten as an appetizer in Puerto Rico! They have crispy outsides and soft and tender insides and can be stuffed with a variety of things. Sorullitos are found everywhere in Puerto Rico—from roadside stands in the country, to street vendors in the city, to fancy restaurants and everywhere in between. Sorullitos may have no filling or a variety of delicious fillings. Today, we’re making Sorullitos stuffed with Avocado and Cheese!
Let's Learn About Puerto Rico!
- Puerto Rico is a beautiful island located directly east of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea. Miami, Florida, is about 1,000 miles northwest of Puerto Rico!
- In 1917 Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the United States, and Puerto Ricans became US citizens.
- As a US territory, Puerto Rico is not a sovereign nation. Eligible voters can vote in presidential primaries but not in the final national election for president or vice-president. Puerto Rico is one of five unincorporated US territories with permanent populations. The other four are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands.
- Puerto Rico is officially a bilingual nation: Spanish and English are the official languages. The capital of Puerto Rico is San Juan.
- Puerto Rico translates to "Rich Port" in English and was named that because Christopher Columbus found gold in the rivers and streams when he landed on the island!
- The streets in Old San Juan are paved with blue cobblestones! The cobblestones came from the waste or "slag" from iron ore refining and then were shaped into blocks as ballast for Spanish ships. They used these blocks to pave the streets, and when the slag aged, the cobblestones turned blue.
- Barceloneta is a town in Puerto Rico famous for its black sand beaches. The sand is black from the high amount of iron present in it.
- Until December 2020, Puerto Rico had one of the largest working telescopes in the world at the Arecibo Observatory. It had been the largest for 53 years until China built a bigger telescope in 2016. Before the Arecibo telescope's sudden collapse caused by broken cables, it was instrumental in several astronomical discoveries. The telescope, built into a natural limestone sinkhole, was made up of nearly 40,000 perforated aluminum panels and covered an area of about twenty acres.
- The third-largest underground river in the world is called the Rio Camuy in Puerto Rico.
- The world's largest living reptile, the leatherback sea turtle, makes it home on the island!
- Baseball, basketball, and boxing are the most popular sports in Puerto Rico.
- Sixty percent of Puerto Rico is covered with mountains.
- The El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rainforest in the US, although there are several temperate rainforests as well.
- The "coquí" is a frog species found only in Puerto Rico and is its unofficial territorial symbol. It produces a distinct, high-pitched sound: "ko-kee, ko-kee." Unfortunately, depending on the type of coquí, the frog is either a threatened or endangered species.
- The hibiscus is Puerto Rico's national flower! Hibiscus flowers are red and can be dried to use as tea!
- A well-known dish in Puerto Rico is "arroz con pollo," or chicken with rice. Puerto Ricans believe they created it, but Spaniards also claim it as their creation. Another popular dish is "asopao," the national soup which is actually more like a stew. You can make it with chicken, pork, beef, seafood, vegetables, or a combo of these. Salted codfish fritters, "Bacalaítos," are a popular snack. "Adobo" is a seasoning and "sofrito" a sauce or flavor base added to many Puerto Rican dishes.
What's It Like to Be a Kid in Puerto Rico?
- At school in Puerto Rico, kids learn in Spanish, with English taught as a required second language.
- Kids like to play baseball, basketball, soccer, and American football. They also like to swim and go to the beach. On the playground, kids might play a song game called "El Gato y El Ratón" (the cat and the rat).
- There's also a fun children's museum to visit, Museo del Niño Carolina, about 13 miles from the capital, San Juan.
- Among the snacks Puerto Rican kids enjoy are "tostones" or fried plantains, "cainitos" or star apples, and "besitos de coco" (coconut kisses) or coconut macaroons. And we already know that they like to eat Sorullitos as an after-school snack!
Lettuce Joke Around
What did one chip say to the avocado dip?
"Well, this is guacward … dip, scoop, munch!"
That's Berry Funny
What is Avocado's favorite kind of music?
Grock 'N' Mol. (guacamole)
THYME for a Laugh
What did the tortilla say to the avocado when the dip bowl was empty?
“We’ve hit guac bottom!”
That's Berry Funny
What did the avocado say to the fork?
"You guac my world."
