This is the Puerto Rican version of corn fritters. They use fine ground corn meal, cheese and butter to create the best version of corn fritters. We are showing two versions: the more traditional one and cheese filled ones. They are both excellent and we know you are going to love both!
Ingredients:
2.5 cups water
1 cup milk
2 tsp salt
3 tbs butter
2.5 c. cornmeal
½ cup of flour
½ cup shredded Longhorn cheddar cheese
Oil for frying
Cheese for stuffed sorullitos
Unlike most American corn fritters, sorullitos are partially cooked before they are fried, resulting in a denser, crispier end product. To start, go ahead and add your water, milk, butter and salt to a large pan and bring it all to a boil over medium heat.
While your water is heating up, go ahead and mix together your cornmeal and flour. I’m usually not one to emphasize brands, but when it comes to corn meal there’s a big difference between products. This isn’t to say that one is better than another -- only that you’ll get very different results depending on which one you use. In this video we are using Goya’s Fine Ground Yellow Cornmeal. Importantly, this version is not precooked so just be on the lookout for that when you are out shopping.
Make sure you mix your cornmeal and flour thoroughly or else you might end up getting clumps of flour in your end product.
Once your pot has come to a boil, you are ready to add your cornmeal. Because we need the cornmeal to cook partially, I like to turn off my stove but just leave the pot there while I mix in the cornmeal. This way, the residual heat from the stove helps cook your dough as you are mixing it.
Go ahead and add your cornmeal and stir vigorously with a heat proof spatula. You want to make sure to break up any clumps and fully integrate the liquid and dry ingredients.
The dough can get pretty dense as it starts to cool, so just think of it as a free workout opportunity.
Once you’ve got a smooth dough you’re ready to add your cheese. We’ve given you the amount we are using below in the comments, but feel free to add more if you’d like, I wouldn’t blame you.
Once added, go ahead and stir to incorporate the cheese.
Once the cheese has been mixed in, go ahead and pull your pot off the stove and let it cool down until you can comfortably handle the dough with your hands.
Traditionally, sorullitos are shaped into a cigar shape comprising a cylinder with rounded ends that is typically between 3 and 6 inches long. There’s no right way to do this, but I generally like to first squeeze the dough into a ball and then use the palms of my hand to roll the ball into a cylinder, rounding off the ends as necessary.
If it’s easier you can also use a flat surface, like a table, to form the cylinder, rolling your ball of dough back and forth while applying downward pressure.
There’s really no wrong way to do this, the only thing to watch out for is that you want your sorullitos to have a smooth surface. If there are cracks in the shaped dough its more likely that they will burst when you are frying them.
Now if you thought our first version of sorullitos didn’t have enough cheese, don’t worry, we have a solution for you.
Go ahead and get your favorite cheese. We are using Queso de Papa, aka Cheddar Cheese here but the possibilities are endless.
Cut your cheese into blocks about ½ and inch cubed.
Now, take your dough and create balls around your blocks of cheese. Again, no magic to this, but I like to form discs of dough in my palm, then put the cheese in the middle of the disc and seal the edges up around the cheese.
Then, once sealed, roll it in the palm of your hand to get a good spherical shape. Like with the other sorrullitos, you want to try and keep the surface of the balls as smooth as possible, to prevent any cracking when you fry them.
Once all your dough is shaped, you’re ready to fry your sorullitos. Add your oil to your pan and bring it up to 325 degrees F. It needs to be hot enough to seal the sorullitos’ surface, but you don’t want it so hot that it burns the outside before cooking the inside.
Go ahead and add your sorullitos to your hot oil. They should start bubbling as soon as you add them. If they don’t your oil isn’t hot enough.
Fry your sorullitos until their outside is a nice golden brown. Then pull them out and let them dry on piece of paper towl, to soak up any excess oil.
Now repeat this process for your cheese filled sorullitos. The one thing to note for these is to watch out if any of the cheese starts to come out of the sorullitos. If it does, you should probably pull that sorullito out, as you don’t want the cheese burning in your oil. Once those are golden brown, go ahead and pull them out.
Now we’re ready to make our sauces. Traditionally we eat sorullitos with mayo-ketchup, which we showed you how to make in our Tostones and Mofongo video, so we aren’t going to repeat it here. Rather, we are going to show you how to make another sauce -- Garlic Aioli. This is really simple to make. Just mix together some mayonnaise, lemon juice, fresh crushed garlic, and a little bit of salt. Stir until incorporated and you are good to go.
Once the sorullitos are cool enough to handle, you are ready to get the party started!
