Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you ate a ton, watched football and relaxed with friends and family.
I spent a couple of days with family down in Virginia — a nice time, save for Thursday’s 5 1/2 hour delay at JFK and the homicide I almost committed on the flight back:
Guy has a guitar case. He refuses to stow it under the plane, even though it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that it’s not going to fit in an overhead compartment. Tries to jam it in anyway, to no avail. Then, he and his Mensa wife have the brilliant idea to wedge the guitar under their seat and directly into my ankles. I roll my eyes to the guy next to me, who jokes, “You didn’t need your feet, did you?”
Flight attendant starts yelling at the couple, but they still won’t budge. The wife once again rams the case hard into my ankles. “HEY! EXCUSE ME!” I yell out. They never look back. Flight’s being held up now. The pilot is making his way down the aisle to find out what’s going on. Finally, the flight attendant demands that the man stow the guitar case with the rest of the baggage, and he relents.
You’ve gotta love air travel.
Anyhow, sorry for the long tangent…
The first thing I did when I got home — besides vowing lifelong hatred towards people traveling with guitars — was swing by Apple Farm for groceries. I’ve often spotted the bin of blackened plantains and thought how gross and rotten they looked. Then I read that to make the side dish of platanos maduros (sweet fried plantains), you need those very blackened, super-ripe plantains. So I bought a few.
Not too appealing sitting on the kitchen counter.
Cut off the ends of the plantains, and they’re easy to peel. I cut each in half and split the pieces lengthwise.
I think to do platanos maduros right, you fry the pieces in a few inches of oil until they’re golden brown and soft. I wanted to try a lower fat approach though, and heated up only a couple tbsp canola oil in a skillet. Then I sauteed the pieces on both sides until they browned.
A few of the plantains were breaking and sticking to the pan, and they weren’t as uniformly browned or as soft as they would have been had I used more oil.
Not the perfect maduros, far from the caliber of those in a good Cuban or Brazilian restaurant, but healthier, and still a nice side dish for black beans and rice.
Has anyone tried preparing plantains by baking them? Would that work?
Air Travel and Sauteed Plantains
Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you ate a ton, watched football and relaxed with friends and family.
I spent a couple of days with family down in Virginia — a nice time, save for Thursday’s 5 1/2 hour delay at JFK and the homicide I almost committed on the flight back:
Guy has a guitar case. He refuses to stow it under the plane, even though it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that it’s not going to fit in an overhead compartment. Tries to jam it in anyway, to no avail. Then, he and his Mensa wife have the brilliant idea to wedge the guitar under their seat and directly into my ankles. I roll my eyes to the guy next to me, who jokes, “You didn’t need your feet, did you?”
Flight attendant starts yelling at the couple, but they still won’t budge. The wife once again rams the case hard into my ankles. “HEY! EXCUSE ME!” I yell out. They never look back. Flight’s being held up now. The pilot is making his way down the aisle to find out what’s going on. Finally, the flight attendant demands that the man stow the guitar case with the rest of the baggage, and he relents.
You’ve gotta love air travel.
Anyhow, sorry for the long tangent…
The first thing I did when I got home — besides vowing lifelong hatred towards people traveling with guitars — was swing by Apple Farm for groceries. I’ve often spotted the bin of blackened plantains and thought how gross and rotten they looked. Then I read that to make the side dish of platanos maduros (sweet fried plantains), you need those very blackened, super-ripe plantains. So I bought a few.
Not too appealing sitting on the kitchen counter.
Cut off the ends of the plantains, and they’re easy to peel. I cut each in half and split the pieces lengthwise.
I think to do platanos maduros right, you fry the pieces in a few inches of oil until they’re golden brown and soft. I wanted to try a lower fat approach though, and heated up only a couple tbsp canola oil in a skillet. Then I sauteed the pieces on both sides until they browned.
A few of the plantains were breaking and sticking to the pan, and they weren’t as uniformly browned or as soft as they would have been had I used more oil.
Not the perfect maduros, far from the caliber of those in a good Cuban or Brazilian restaurant, but healthier, and still a nice side dish for black beans and rice.
Has anyone tried preparing plantains by baking them? Would that work?