Fried plantains

Whenever we go out or order from a Caribbean or African restaurant, my wife always orders the plantains when they are available.  Who wouldn't?  They are sweet, slightly crispy, and delicious.  They are so popular that our local African restaurant frequently sells out.  How complicated can they possibly be to cook at home?  Well, not really complicated, but you need to know a couple of tips.

The main key is that the plantains need to be really ripe.  Plantains are basically firmer bananas.  Where a banana would basically liquify, the plantain keeps it's shape.  For some reason plantains seem to be sold really unripe, even more so than bananas and are somewhat more difficult to judge in terms of ripeness.  While bananas go from dark green and hard to bright yellow and soft, plantains turn from green to slightly yellow or to black and slightly softer.  The first time I tried to cook plantains, they weren't ripe enough and I ended up with basically banana flavored fried potatoes.  OK, but not exactly mouth watering.

I would recommend finding the ripest looking plantains, buy them, and put them in a brown paper back on the counter top for a week or so.  Toss in an apple for good measure.  Both the bag and the apple give off ethylene gas which helps to ripen the bananas.  My plantains didn't really change much in color, but after a week I opened one a little and tasted it.  It was quite sweet, like a firm ripe banana, so ready to go.  Plantains appear to have a much longer shelf life than bananas, so you have a lot of time.  Bananas seem to go from unripe to rotten in a couple of days, but not plantains.

I sliced the plantains up fairly thin and fried them in a combination of butter and canola oil.  I am sure any oil should work fine, just as long as you can get it pretty hot.  I found that my range heated to 8 out of 9 was a good temperature for frying.  Yours might vary.  It was a temperature where the plantains brown nicely over a couple of minutes without blackening.  Flip them over, cook them another couple of minutes, then remove.  Drain on paper towels.  They will soften a bit, but still easily keep their shape.

Remember to get the oil to the proper temperature before you add the plantains so that you don't stew them or have them soak up a ton of oil.  Hot oil doesn't get absorbed nearly as much as cool oil.  I usually start with the point where the oil has begun to smoke slightly.  Adding your plantains will cool the oil immediately and then you can tweak the temperature up or down to get proper frying.

Forgive the rotation of the picture, but here are the finished plantains.  Better than any I have ever had in a restaurant.  Even better cold than warm.