Plantains

Just picked up a couple this morning at a nearby Indian grocery store. They were still fairly hard and green, so peeled them, diced and soaked briefly, then drained and stir fried them with white lentils, mustard seeds and some green chillies. Really delicious.

Anyone else a fan of this fruit? And any other recipes/methods people can share to cook plantains?

I've only had them the Cuban way. Ripened until black, sliced, fried and lightly salted. They go great with Arroz con Pollo, black beans and rice and roast pork. Salil, the way you had them, were they potato-like? I've never had them non-ripened.

Yup, the texture is very potato-like, though they felt much lighter than potatoes. I've made a resolution to cook/eat plantains more often now.

Just picked up a couple this morning at a nearby Indian grocery store. They were still fairly hard and green, so peeled them, diced and soaked briefly, then drained and stir fried them with white lentils, mustard seeds and some green chillies. Really delicious.

Anyone else a fan of this fruit? And any other recipes/methods people can share to cook plantains?

Yup, I like them in all sorts of Caribbean preparations. Fried is good, but my favorite plantain dish is probably mofongo, a Puerto Rican preparation that involves mashing a fried green plantain (quite different from its yellow cousin) with tons of garlic, chicken broth, olive oil and pork cracklings. It makes an excellent side dish or even a main dish.

Mark Lipton

Ooo! The mofongo sounds truly interesting and tasty. I will find a recipe. Heretofore I have only fried plantains and used them in lieu of bananas to accompany curry.

[Jenise]

Susan, I'm with you. Sounds delicious! I've never cooked a green plantain before. There are two ripe ones on my counter right now awaiting some fort of dispensation.

Speaking of ways to cook them, however: a Venezuelan friend of mine used to cut a large slit in a ripe one, kind of pressing it down into a baking dish, and fill it with monterey jack cheese then under the broiler it would go until the plaintains were brown and the cheese bubbly. A light dusting of nutmeg went on top. He said they were frequently done with way at home.

I just pulled a book off my shelf called Culinaria the Carribean. Surprisingly, no entry for plantains but two recipes for using green bananas. A photo of the green bananas looks like the familiar Chiquita style banana. In both recipes, the bananas are boiled in their skins until soft with "a teaspoon of vinegar to keep the pot from turning black". This is, to me, a completely new way of dealing with bananas.

Mark, that sounds phenomenal. I will have to try it.

Another favourite of mine is plantain bhajia for green plantains - an Indian preparation, where they're battered with seasoned gram flour and then deep fried. (It's done even more regularly with sliced onions, potatoes, cauliflower or whole chillies - love the dish when someone else in my family is making it, but given the mess and the fact that I don't like deep frying, I've never tried it yet.)

I only have eaten them as the Puerto Rican staple "tostones". It served the same function on the plate as french fries. Green plantains were diagonally sliced and deep fried. I think they were also squished before frying. It was a long time ago, 1965.

I'm a huge fan of plantains--cooked anyway you want, really. I especially love fried plantains, done the way you find them in Mexican cuisine (though they might be common to cuisine from other Spanish-speaking countries). I love the crispy, lightly fried savoriness of tostones, or fried green plantains, though the much sweeter, more tender and mushy maduros, or fried sweet plantains, aren't bad either.