Cooking Green Plantains

One of my favorite foods to eat are Plantains. There are many different things that you can do with them. So I decided to start a series on how to cook with plantains.

This is a picture of our lunch for today. I will tell you the steps of making the fried plantains.

This first way is one of the easiest and it seems to be the first way everyone wants to try. It is fried and smashed plantain. It is very easy and reminds me of a chip. Whenever I want something salty and crunchy this is my treat.

The only things you will need is a frying pan, some oil, plantain, salt, and a smasher or a spoon.

You will need a green plantain

Than you peel it and dice it. Yes peeling a green plantain will be not be easy. You might even need to cut off some of the skin that stays stuck to the plantain.

While you are cutting your plantain you heat up your oil. For this I used coconut oil and I always use a cast iron pan. Once your oil is hot you can place your plantains in the pan and do not put any in the center as this is the hottest part and that one will burn. I find that placing them in a circle works best. And you can now cover them with a lid. Leave them alone for 3-5 minutes. When you start to smell them you know you can turn them now. The photo below shows how they should look once you turn them. Recover them and let the other side cook for 3-5 minutes as well.

Now remove them from the pan and it is time to smash them. there is a special tool for this or you can just use a spoon. Both ways work just as well.

Now that they are all smashed you place them back in the pan and cook each side for 3 minutes.

Add salt while they are still hot and they are ready to enjoy.

For lunch today we made the fried plantains and carrots with rice, fruit bowl was also included with papaya, apple and orange. This is a very easy to prepare and well rounded lunch. I know that if you make these you will enjoy them as much as my family does.

This method of cooking the green plantain is also refereed to as Tostones

Here is some nutritional information on plantain that I got from Wikipedia.

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy 510 kJ (120 kcal)
Carbohydrates 31.89 g
Sugars 10 g
Dietary fiber 2.3 g
Fat 0.37 g
Protein 1.3 g

Vitamins

Vitamin A equiv. (7%) 56 μg
Beta-Carotene (4%) 457 μg
Thiamine (B1) (5%) 0.052 mg
Riboflavin (B2) (5%) 0.054 mg
Niacin (B3) (5%) 0.686 mg
Pantothenic acid (B5) (5%) 0.26 mg
Vitamin B6 (23%) 0.299 mg
Folate (B9) (6%) 22 μg
Choline (3%) 13.5 mg
Vitamin C (22%) 18.4 mg
Vitamin E (1%) 0.14 mg
Vitamin K (1%) 0.7 μg

Minerals

Calcium (0%) 3 mg
Iron (5%) 0.6 mg
Magnesium (10%) 37 mg
Phosphorus (5%) 34 mg
Potassium (11%) 499 mg
Sodium (0%) 4 mg
Zinc (1%) 0.14 mg

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