Crispy baked yuca fries with cilantro dip

Welcome to the Wednesday Dispatch, a quick check-in featuring a freshly-published recipe, plus a random rec for a thing I’m loving at the moment.

I first discovered yuca fries – and yuca in general – at a Cuban restaurant in Greenwich Village (aptly named Cuba), which has since sadly closed. They had all the greatest hits of Cuban cuisine, excellent mojitos, and sometimes even a live salsa band. It was small and cozy, but it always felt like a party in there.

It was one of those places I frequented when I was very young, had my own money for the very first time, and may have been using a fake ID to order the aforementioned mojitos. Eating fried yuca always brings me back to those excellent, excellent times.

As an adult, I’ve also come to appreciate this South American root vegetable for its nutrition too. Also known as “cassava,” yuca is a great source of resistant starch - i.e. a type of carbohydrate that ferments in the large intestine and feeds our good gut bacteria, thereby strengthening the microbiome.

*pats self on back for segueing from fake ID to gut microbiome in two sentences*

These baked yuca fries are an oldie-but-goodie TNB recipe I recently updated with new photos and prep tips. The creamy cilantro sauce makes them absolutely irresistible.

Get the recipe

Speaking of fake IDs, being 35 means I can no longer drink like I did when I was 20. I literally get a hangover from two glasses of wine, hence why I mostly avoid alcohol on weeknights. But it’s still nice to cap the day with something that’s not water and lately I’ve been loving good ol’ soda (currently Waterloo peach) + Angostura bitters. It has the vibe of a cocktail, but it’s actually hydrating and there’s no headache after.

This Substack is the newsletter companion to my site, thenewbaguette.com. You can find all my recipes published there in full, with helpful tips and step-by-step photos. You can also follow along on Instagram, where I share video tutorials and behind-the-scenes content.