A few weeks ago I posted a picture on my Instagram account of the bunch of plantains that we cut from our tree.
We have now reached the end of our bunch and I’m happy to say that we didn’t waste too many. There were a few left that are were too black and dried up to use for anything but for the most part we managed to cook up the rest.
How did we use up our plantains?
The Green Plantains
The green stage is one of my favourite stages for eating plantains but I’ve noticed that it’s not a common stage to cook with in Mexico, or at least where I am in Manzanillo. I like this stage because I can make things that satisfy my salt cravings.
Tostones
My first experience with tostones was in Cuba and it was one of the things that I most looked forward to eating. When I arrived in Mexico, I remember going out almost immediately to the grocery store to buy green plantains. In Cuba, it was like a side dish to eat with rice and cucumber salad but for me I like to eat my tostones for breakfast with my sunny side up eggs.
Plantain Hashbrowns
This was accidental so there is no recipe link. I was trying to make tostones but when I mashed the partially fried plantains, they broke apart and I ended up eating small “hashbrown” pieces of fried plantains. They still tasted just as good as the tostones.
Mashed Plantains
My intention with the mashed plantains recipe was to make the fufu that remembered eating in Cuba. I don’t think I boiled the plantains long enough because this recipe experimentation didn’t turn out quite the way I thought it would and definitely didn’t turn out like the Cuban fufu that I was hoping for.
The Yellow Plantains
In the yellow stage, this is when the plantains start to get a little bit sweeter. Mexicans seem to be more familiar with cooking plantains at this stage, or at least this is how my boyfriend and our roommate were familiar with eating plantains.
Sweet Fried Plantain Slices
I liked the sweet plantain slices so much that I made them multiple times. My boyfriend was the one that first talked about this way of cooking plantains to eat with lentils. He failed to mention that what he REALLY wanted to eat with the sweet fried plantains was a type of Mexican lentil soup. I went and cooked the lentils up as if I was making rice or something like that, and then he asked me why there wasn’t any liquid (insert face palm to the forehead emoji).
Cheese Stuffed Plantain Balls
I tried this savoury recipe with cheese in the middle but without the cheese-crusted part. I liked how it turned out but I think I would like a sweet version WAY better with chocolate or Nutella in the middle instead of the cheese.
S’mores Stuffed Plantains
The first time I thought to look for a stuffed plantain recipe was when I tried “platanos asados en su cascara” (grilled plantains with the skin on). Eating those grilled plantains hot off the grill was yummy but my first thought was, “This would be so much better with chocolate” or “This would taste so good with some vanilla ice cream right now”. I haven’t tried the warm grilled plantains with ice cream yet but plan to. I did, however, decide to continue the s’mores deliciousness that I introduced my boyfriend to at Christmas time. The recipe I followed was actually for regular bananas but I figured that using it for plantains at this stage of ripeness wouldn’t make too much of a difference. They still turned out super yummy!
The Almost Black Plantains
For me, the almost black stage is kind of the like the almost black stage of a regular banana. I don’t like the taste of them to eat as is so they almost always end up in a baking recipe. That’s exactly what I did with the plantains. I used them in a baking recipe.
Plantain Bread
I was pleasantly surprised with how the plantain bread turned out. I want to make again and add chocolate chips but by the time I got around to it, the remaining plantains were too black and dried up to use for anything.
There is a lot more that you could do with plantains and the next time we cut off another bunch from the tree I plan to try making plantain fries, plantain tortillas, and plantain empanadas.