Tostones- Fried green plantainsfeatured

We eat a lot of Latin food around here. We live in a predominantly Latin neighbourhood in Upper Manhattan, and my husband is Puerto Rican, and therefore so are my kids. I cook them a ton of Egyptian food to connect them to the culture my parents passed to me, in large part through food (I am what I eat, afterall), but their culture doesn’t end at Egyptian. So, I cook Puerto Rican food because they too are what they eat.

We all adore tostones. There’s so many delicious ways to eat plantains, sweet fried maduros, porky mofongo, mashed green mangu, but tostones are just so perfect in their simplicity. They make a perfect side dish with pretty much any Latin or other Caribbean dish, like my Puerto Rican arroz con pollo (rice and chicken) recipe.

These are the mostly commonly found plantain variety. In Puerto Rico tostones are also made using breadfruit. You can find my recipe for tostones de pana here.

How to make tostones

Here’s my recipe. Ok, its hardly a recipe. It’s four words: fry, smash, fry, salt. Got it?

You want to start with very green plantains, platanos verdes in Spanish. No yellow on them. I have definitely left my platanos a day or two too long and made tostones with slightly sweet plantains. They are still delicious, but are not proper tostones. We like to call these “tosturos” or “madtones” at home- a cross between tostones and their fried yellow counterpart, maduros.

First, peel your platanos. Peeling green plantains is kind of a pain, the peel doesn’t come off particularly easily, and if it does, it means your plantains are getting too ripe. Slice through the skin lengthwise and pull the peel off. Chop crosswise into roughly one-inch pieces.

Fry: Heat enough oil to half cover the pieces over high heat in a pan. Fry, turning occasionally, until cooked through, and remove to a paper towel-lined plate with a slotted spoon.

Smash: I use a special tool for this called a tostonera, which you can find here, but you can smash your plantain pieces using a flat surface, like the bottom of a small pot or plate. They shouldn’t offer too much resistance, and if they fall apart they were not cooked through the first time (put them back!).

Fry: Place them back into the hot oil and fry until crisp and golden.

Salt: Salt.

Enjoy with a squeeze of lime, dipped into garlic mojo, guacamole or salsa, or as your new favourite side dish.