Plantains are a staple in the Guatemalan culture. Whether they are sliced and fried and served with beans and eggs and bread for breakfast (and crema of course) or mashed and filled with sweetened refried black beans and sauteed…….Guatemalans love their platanos! The other day I had Carlos bring home some ripe plantains. Plantains look like bananas but are a bit bigger and thicker. Being a gringo I am not trusted to pick out plantains.
The other night after making tostadas for the second time, this time with the tomato sauce (which I served coll but should have been hot!), I attempted to make rellenitos de platanos. This is plantain dough stuffed with a refried black bean paste thats has had sugar and cinnamon added to it. Now after frying up the tostadas I figured the rellenitos get fried too. NOOOOOO! They were still good but Carlos said the only get “sauteed”. “Ummmm you forgot to tell me that part.” Apparently I was supposed to boil the peeled plantains before making the dough. OOOPs he forgot to tell me that too! I just mashed up four plantains. I found this “dough” to be waaaaay to sticky and gooey to be able to do anything with. So I decided to add masa (corn flour) to the mashed plantains. Minus my not boiling the plantains and then frying the rellenitos he said they were good. He does not know I added masa to the dough. Once I added masa to the dough, it handles and shaped easily.
So today I decided I needed to fry up my last VERY ripe plantain. I cut them up and fried them tile the edges were golden. This may have been a bit overcooked because they were very soft but tasted oh so good! It brought me right back to morning breakfast in Guatemala!
After that I got out a big skillet and covered the bottom of it n a bit of canola oil. I took my leftover plantain dough and sweet black bean paste out of the fridge. The dough was still abit gooey so I added more masa to it. I took a big glob of dough, flattened it and added a dollop of the back bean paste and then covered the paste up and rolled it into a ball and dropped the ball in the hot oil. I fried all sides in the oil until golden brown (although I did burn one side of the first of 2 batches). Lifted them out of the oil and placed on paper towel to drain. I went back and did a second batch. I barely let the first batch cool before I dug into one. I put it on a plate and smothered it in Guatemalan crema and oh my goodness was it good! Burned side and all!
I just looked them up online and found a picture…….my rellenitos look just the ones I found online!!!!!!! YAAAAY me!
The attached picture is of plantains growing on some relatives farm way up in the mountains of Guatemala, which we visited the last time we were there!
