Lampreado
Lampreado, also known as Lambreado or “Payaguá Mascada”, is a dish typical of the cuisine of Paraguay, that has a high nutritional value.
This is a delicious fried cake which base is one of the most characteristic features of culinary taste of Northeast of Paraguay: cassava (cassava Manihot = Manihot utilísima, "family plant of Euphorbiaceae which roots are edible and for its high content of starch used to produce a flour which is high in protein).
Origin of name
While the word "Lambreado" is a degeneration of the correct "Lampreado" there are few data about the origins of the name of this fried cake made of cassava and beef.
In Paraguay, Castilian-Guarani bilingual country, and in Northeastern Argentine (where guarani language is also spoken) it is also called "payaguá mascada", an allusion to one of the races of Guaranito ( "payaguáes") who populated the Paraguayan geography in pre-Columbian times.
Ingredients
There are several varieties of "Lampreado." The more traditional used ingredients are as follows: cassava, boiled and ground meat, garlic, onion, salt, oil and breadcrumbs.
In other varieties that are heavier to the stomach (but according to many more tasty), are used Pella or pork fat, starch and cassava is mixed with raw meat.
Preparation
The preparation process is simple. cassava is pilled and cooked in salty water until it is reasonably soft but not too soft. It then passes by the grinding machine where it is mixed and ground with ground beef, garlic, and onions fried in oil, salt and breadcrumbs.
With this mixture you get “small cakes”, or more properly "tortillas” and they are fried in oil.
To reduce its caloric value and its heaviness is recommended to serve the tortillas with various vegetables salad.
Further details of interest
The Lampreado can be kept for several days, and it is ideal for the "avio" (definition taken from the Royal Dictionary: "Among pastors and country people, the provision that is to feed the herd for as long as it takes to return to town or farmhouse") of travelers and "troperos" (drivers troop of cattle, mainly).
In the area of the department of Misiones, Paraguay, is given the name "Lambreado" to what elsewhere is called "marinera" beef or chicken.
- According to some scholars of the social history of Paraguay, all the popular Paraguayan cuisine was consolidated as a small family industry after the War of Paraguay against Triple Alliance (Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, 1864 and 1870) This was very blunt in caloric content because of the situation of the country after the war made food scarce, for which reason the entire Paraguayan cuisine has high protein content in response to the fact that daily meals were limited.
References
Further reading
- "Tembi'u Paraguay" Josefina Velilla Aquinas
- "Karu Reka - Paraguayan culinary anthropology," Margarita Miro Ibars.