Pork Patties with Corn (Boribori) Recipe
Boribori corn patties are popular on the other side of the world, somewhere between Argentina and Bolivia. Paraguay is a country only slightly larger than Japan. Its national cuisine is plain and simple: European traditions combined with Native American ones. As everywhere, it's grain, meat, poultry, game, fish, vegetables, herbs and dairy, with lots of dishes made from maize and corn. The typical local dish boribori is a soup of ground meat and vegetables with small cornmeal dumplings mixed with cheese.
I don't know why, but while leafing through a book on American cuisine, I came across an interesting fact. Boribori is supposedly a soup with corn dumplings; someone even said it resembles Ukrainian soup with halushky dumplings. And at the same time it's chopped meat patties with corn kernels.
I suspect the chopped patties are the North American take. They are also often made as chopped chicken patties. Making boribori, chopped pork patties, isn't hard at all. All you need is lean pork and canned corn.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Lean pork 400 g
- Canned corn 1 can
- Eggs 1
- Olive oil 50 ml
- Breadcrumbs 2-3 tbsp
- Salt, ground white pepper, chili powder, sweet paprika to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- Looking at the finished boribori, you can say with confidence that these are pork patties. The thing is, from that angle anything shaped right and made from ground meat can be called a patty. As the famous philosopher Kozma Prutkov said, look to the root! And the root is that it's a patty, but not quite. A regular patty gets onion, garlic and soaked white bread, not corn and breadcrumbs.
- Open the can of corn and drain off all the liquid. Usually there's very little liquid in the can, so there's hardly anything to drain.
- The pork shouldn't be too fatty: shoulder or leg. Rinse the meat and remove any bones and sinew. Grind the pork in a meat grinder.
- In a bowl, mix the ground pork, egg and seasonings to taste: ground white pepper, paprika, chili and salt. Add the corn kernels and mix well.
- Add 1 tsp of olive oil and mix the meat again.
- Then, still mixing, add breadcrumbs or grated stale white bread 1 tsp at a time until the mixture is firm enough to shape into patties.
- The finished mixture should be soft and barely stick to your hands.
- With wet hands, divide the mixture into 6 portions and shape them into round, flat patties. Flat is essential, because pork patties tend to puff up into balls as they cook.
- Pour the rest of the olive oil into a well-heated skillet and fry the boribori pork patties over high heat on both sides until golden brown.
- Then turn the heat down to the lowest setting, cover the skillet with a lid and keep cooking the pork patties. Be sure to turn them from time to time.
- After 15 minutes under the lid in total, the pork patties will be fully cooked.
- As a side for the corn patties, Paraguayans recommend fried bananas, or a thick spicy tomato sauce with mashed potatoes; the corn patties always taste great.
- Sometimes I make a side of fresh bell pepper and pickled onion with herbs. I added a few herbs, lemon and canned pineapple. The corn kernels that fell out of the patties and got toasted make a great addition to the side.
- It turns out really well: fruit and pork patties go together perfectly.
- But for boribori without a side, a slice of lemon and a sprig of parsley is quite enough.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 225 |
| Prep: | 15 mins |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total: | 45 mins |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | American cuisine |
| Rating: |
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5
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