Baked yucca (cassava) gratin recipe

As I wrote in one of my first posts, yucca is a winner.  Cheap, highly versatile, readily available (at least in my hood), and tasting like a potato that?s been highly larded with butter, sour cream, cheese, and other industrial and non-industrial processed fats, there?s nothing NOT to like about yucca.

Taking a middle America approach to the tuber, this gratin is easy to make, requires just a few ingredients (6, to be exact), and is actually healthy.  Yup, a healthy gratin care of yucca?s creamy taste and texture.  Read:  no cream, butter, or anything like that needed.

Ingredients:

2 medium sized yucca tubers

1 large diced onion

2 cloves of minced garlic

1/3rd of a cup of extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Panko breadcrumbs

Directions:

Peel the yucca and cut into 2 inch chunks.

Raw yucca. Cut into 2 inch chunks. Easy.

Add to salted boiling water and cook for 20-25 minutes or until very tender and falling apart.  Drain, reserving a cup or so of the cooking water.  NOTE:  remove the stick running through the center of the yucca, unless eating wood is your thing.

Perfectly cooked. Yummy goodness.

While boiling away, add the onion, garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste to a skillet over medium heat and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the onions start to caramelize.  Put aside what you don?t invariably eat.

Eat by the spoonful or add to yucca.

Add the boiled yucca, cooked onion mixture, and a bit of the cooking water to an OVEN safe bowl/container and mash until desired consistency.  Add additional cooking water, if necessary.  Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly.

Almost there...

Top with a thin layer of panko breadcrumbs and a drizzle of olive oil.  Add to the broiler until brown on top.

Serve with:

Anything from Picadillo to Jamaican curry goat/beef to roasted chicken.  Yee haw.

Golden brown n delicious. Eat away.