Bollitos de Yuca:

Yuca is a staple of the Dominican diet. 

Served mashed in the form of Mangú...

Boiled with pickled onions...

Simmered in sancocho...

Or fried in a delightfully cheese-filled ball, you can pretty much eat it morning, noon, and night. And most Dominicans do. 
So in my attempt to conquer at least a few  recipes from the D.R., it seemed only natural that I should tackle this giant tuber. 

Ok so it may look a bit intimidating, being about 3 times the size of your normal potato and having dragon-scale tough skin, but that just means you get to pull out the big knife and have fun pretending you're a samurai warrior. 

That yucca will stand no chance against your awesome knife-wielding skills, which you probably learned from an ancient, wrinkled sensei in a hidden mountainside buddhist temple shrouded in mist. 

Once you've adequately kung fu chopped your yucca into 1 inch chunks, its boiling time. Simply add enough water to cover the yucca and a heaping teaspoon of salt and let those babies boil until they are fork tender, which will probably take about 10 minutes. Then drain them and add them back to the hot pot (the hot pot will continue to evaporate any moisture left in the yuca) and start your mashing. This entire process, by the way, is an excellent form of anger management and much cheaper than therapy. Perhaps why Dominicans are ranked as some of the happiest people in the world?? Perhaps :)
At this point, you could stop and add a few pats of butter and have some delicious mang'ú. Or, if you are looking for an added challenge, read on. 

Add a little milk and a little seasoning to your lovely yuca mash, and then the fun part, squish it around some hunky chunks of cheese and roll it into nice lumpy little ball. Warning: things could get a little messy here, just enjoy it. 

Dip the balls in a little egg wash, roll them in some bread crumbs, fry them up, and voila!

You now have a rave-worthy appetizer: crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside,  and dripping with ooey-gooey cheddary goodness--its kind of tastes like a baked potato that took a walk on the wild side. 

It will be hard not to eat these little guys all yourself, but you must remember to be nice and share. Trust me, your friends will thank you for it!
The complete recipe can be found at Aunt Clara´s Kitchen. 
(P.S. This recipe will make quite a few bollitos, so if you don´t think you can eat them all up in one night, it´s good to know that they freeze wonderfully. Just put them in an air-tight container in your freezer before the egg wash step. Then when you throw together a last-minute shin-dig, just defrost them in the microwave, batter ém, and fry ém. Easy Peasy.
 Also for your gringos who can´t find yuca, (or cassava in English), you could probably substitute potatoes and achieve a similar result)