482/1038 - Tostones and salsa

"What on earth is a tostone?" I hear you ask. 

A tostone is a slice of fried plantain. 

Still none the wiser? A plantain is related to the bananas we are used to, but they are not sweet at all and actually taste more like sweet potato. The fruit is stuck to the peel and requires peeling with a vegetable peeler. Interesting hey?

Plantains

As usual, I just couldn't bring myself to deep fry this dish and so shallow dried the slices in coconut oil and then baked them for around 10 minutes. When they came out of the oven, they were lovely and soft. The idea was then to cover them in baking paper and flatten them with a mallet, but I found that I could simply squash them flat with the base of a small glass.

I did fry them a second time, but again only in a small in a small amount of oil. The guests were divided regarding this dish, the adults liking them (or perhaps they were just being polite?) and the kids not liking them very much at all. I do think this was largely because they looked like fried slices of banana and the children were expecting a much sweeter taste. 

There was a unanimous positive vote for the salsa, however, which was wonderfully tangy and fresh. I did halve the tostone recipe, but made the full quantity of salsa, which in hindsight was a wonderful decision.

I am not sure if I will make this again, but am glad I have tried tostones and can now speak quite knowledgeably about plantains!