Mashed plantains

I stopped by a Puerto Rican/international food market the other day just because I was in the neighborhood. Although there were tons and tons of interesting products stocked in the many isles of this deceivingly small market, my eyes were fixed on ripe plátanos (plantains) from the moment I opened the door (and smelled the ever-present smell of dried cod). Plantains can be found in most big supermarkets around Cleveland, but they are smaller than the ones I grew up with and they don’t ripe as well. Plantains are cultivars of bananas; that means that plantains are to bananas what Brussel sprouts and cauliflower are to cabbage. Just like bananas, you can use them either green or ripe, but they make totally different dishes. The green plantains are starchy and savory, while the ripe ones are sweet, with a creamy texture, which makes it crucial to commit to one ripeness state. When you want a green plantain make sure it’s green, and when you want it to be ripe, make sure that the peel is yellow with black spots; just yellow won’t cut it. If a plantain is not ripe enough, its texture, its flavor and its sweetness will be underwhelming.

In Puerto Rico, most of the plantain recipes require deep frying. But my grandma, who was a fierce advocate of healthy eating back in the day when high fat and high carbs were still in, was not having any of it. She would instead, make us boiled plantains (they were terrific!). To this day, I prefer to eat plantains boiled rather than fried. They are so easy and simple to make too. You make some slits on the peel, and boil them in salted water until a fork can go through.

The boiled plantains have a beautiful sweetness to them that is unlike anything else. The main problem is that although they may be tasty and very nutritious, they don’t look too appealing. If I remember correctly, my sisters, my cousins and my parents were somewhat thrown off by the looks of these plantains, so they would often avoid eating them. (More plantains for me!)

To give these guys a little bit of a pick me up, and make them more appealing, I mash them. I use some butter and brown sugar to enhance their creaminess and sweetness, and I garnish them with fresh thyme to get a nice lemony aroma. That’s it. Now the boiled plantains remain delicious, but they are much more appetizing. They really look much more luscious and luxurious than their 3 minutes-ago counterparts. Easy, simple, delicious!

On the road shortcut

253 calories, 59 g carbs, 4 g fat, 2 g protein per serving (4 servings)

3 plantains

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon brown butter

Fresh thyme to garnish

Bring salted water to a boil. Make some slits on the plantain peel, on a spiral pattern. Add them to the boiling water and cook until a fork can go through easily.

Remove the plantain peel. (You may need to wait a few minutes so the plantains are easier to manage since they’ll be hot!) The peel should be easy to remove. I use to forks to pull them apart from opposite ends.

Transfer the plantains to a mixing bowl. Add the butter and the brown sugar. Mash the plantains. Transfer the mash to a serving dish, and garnish with fresh thyme.

Plantain Soup

I can’t believe that Christmas-time is over. I feel like we had so much fun on Christmas and we built so much momentum as we approached it, that it’s kind of a bummer that it’s over. The house still looks Christmassy with all the decorations and the Christmas tree still looking beautiful. I can almost taste all the great food we had and the fun times we shared that day. But it’s over now. Well, is not really over just yet, since we still have New Years Eve and New Years Day to look forward to. And a New Year means we get new resolutions to work on for the next 365 days ahead of us. 

I’ve become pretty good at keeping my resolutions in the last few years. For 2012 I decided that I’ve had enough of my own whining, so my New Year’s resolution was to stop whining. Man that was hard. If you ever get to see me sick, or sleepy, you’d know what I mean. Still, the day-to-day whining was too much, and it had to go. I’d like to think that part of my weight loss success had to do with me not complaining about things as much, and working hard on them instead. For 2013, I had a different kind of resolution. I decided not to use elevators unless I absolutely had to. I’ve been good so far so I’ll count it as a success! I haven’t decided what my 2014 resolution will be just yet, but I’m sure I’ll find something. Self improvement never ends.

Of course, the holiday season was not just fun. It brought some stress, and it also brought some worries. As an example, my mother had surgery a few days before Christmas. I hear (since we don’t live in the same country) that she seems to be OK, and she’s constantly improving. The worst part of her recovery though, is dealing with the dietary restrictions imposed by her doctor. According to her, the instructions were that she can’t eat solid foods for a while. That means she struggles trying to keep her diabetes under control while following the unclear and somewhat generic advice her doctor gave her. 

Even though her mother (my grandmother) could’ve easily (and happily) survived on soup alone, it’s not really my mom’s cup of tea (which she doesn’t like either). So I thought I could come up with a soup she would actually like, using only ingredients found in the Island*. OK, I did use some sour cream to garnish the soup (which makes it optional) even though it doesn’t really exist there (unless it was recently introduced and I’m just not aware of it). Plantains on the other hand are a ubiquitous in the Puerto Rican markets and supermarkets and are the core of my soup. They’ve been a staple ingredient of our cuisine since brought to the Island by the African slaves centuries ago.

Although plantain soups are not really that common, there are a few recipes around, using mostly green plantains. Ripe plantains though, seemed more appealing to me. I guess it’s only natural since I’m obsessed with both sweet potato and butternut squash soups, and the ripe plantains bring those sweet notes I seem to be always longing for. The sweetness was balanced by hints of spiciness, and although a garnish, by the sour cream. Luscious and rich, but light on the calories; this soup has it all. 

One last thing, before I forget: Happy New Year! Make it count!

On the road shortcut

Nutritional info per serving (Serving size 2 cups, serves 4)

337 calories, 55 g carbs, 13 g fat, 5 g protein

1 large onion

1 green pepper

1 clove garlic

3 tablespoons of olive oil (1 for making the sofrito, 2 for cooking the sofrito)

½ teaspoon tomato paste

8 cups hot chicken broth

3 ripe plantains

2 tablespoons brown sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon sweet paprika

¼ teaspoon cumin

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

8 teaspoons reduced fat sour cream (optional garnish)

8 small sweet peppers (optional garnish)

1.       Make the sofrito. Using a food processor or a blender, purée the onion, the pepper, and the garlic clove with 1 of the tablespoons of olive oil.

2.       Preheat a stockpot over medium heat and then add the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the sofrito and cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for an additional minute.

3.       Add the previously-warmed chicken broth, the salt, paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper. Stir. Add the plantains and bring the soup to a boil.

4.       Once it starts boiling, cover the stockpot and lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

5.       Using an immersion blender or transferring in 2 batches to a regular blender, purée the soup.

6.       Serve hot and garnish with a teaspoon of sour cream, and a small sweet pepper if desired. (Sour cream can be substituted with Greek yogurt).

  *Note: I'm not a physician. This soup was designed based on my interpretation of what my mother may like. It is not intended to control her diabetes.

Kohlrabi - expect great things

Sometimes, for some obscure and unknown reason, I feel like an artist. I need some inspiration. I'm not really sure of what exactly it is that I'm looking for, or what is it that I want to accomplish, but I have this feeling that I will recognize the signs when I see them. As part of my inspiration search, I decided to give the West Side Market, in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland, a friendly visit. Now, if you haven't been to the West Side Market, you may not appreciate the abundance of both food, and of visitors at the huge location. The Market, even though at a glance it may look like an old fashioned approach to buying food, has actually been growing its reputation on specialty and gourmet items. I was sure something would catch my eye. And it was a trio of kohlrabi.

I had actually never seen kohlrabi before, or at least I never paid attention to it. You see, I grew up in Puerto Rico, where everything thas is edible has a loud presence... And it screams EAT ME! The Kohlrabi is technically a winter vegetable, so you can imagine... To me it was the definition of droopiness. But once again, in the interest of trying to spice things up I went for it.

Kohlrabi is actually quite a common item in the cuisines of central and northern Europe. Like its name suggests (kohl - cabbage) it is yet another cultivar of cabbage. That means that it is an artificially selected form of cabbage, grown for its stem as the part of the plant you'll eat. The rabi part of the name, suggests its similarity to turnips, which I have never eaten either... Which make things interesting... Anyway, the point is that they are supposed to be somewhat sweet. They are also very nutritious stems. There is a good amount of fiber, some protein, and a very long list of vitamins and minerals you may want to check out; they will probably give your multivitamins a run for their money. Some people claim you should not eat kohlrabi if you have thyroid problems, but I don't really know if that's true. Actually, I heard about that after I had finished eating them... So, I guess is a good that I don't have thyroid issues.

So, how to cook it? A soup would have probably been a safe choice. That is, after all, the Euro-way. However, I wasn't really in the mood for it. I looked around the kitchen, and I saw some of the other friends I brought home from the market. Now things were getting fun. I noticied I also had two staples of the Puerto Rican cuisine I don't get to eat too often: a plátano maduro (ripe plantain) and a ñame (yams - not sweet potatoes, not at all). When you see a plantain, you can know its sweetness level based on its color. Green is savory, Yellow is somewhat sweet and Yellow/Black is sweet. Yams are savory and delicious. So immediately, I thought of one of the most common dishes we have in Puerto Rico: viandas. Viandas refers to a a family of dishes made of a collection of roots (yes, those Spanish Roots you see in the supermarkets), green bananas and sometimes pana/panapen (breadfruit) boiled together. The magic of the dish relies on the different tones of each ingredient echoing the next; it goes from the savory taste of green bananas, to the sweetness of the local varieties of sweet potatoes (batata) balanced by spectra of the savory/sweet notes of each of the components. 

I wasn't sure about the boiling part of the process, but I was decided to keep the idea of the viandas alive in my head, as Grandma would have been insisting, had she been alive. However, instead of boiling my goodies, I would roast them. I made 3 kohlrabies, 1 sweet potato, 1 yam, and 1 ripe plantain. I peeled and cubed them, added salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. Since I was going all Puerto Rican on the poor Arian stem, I decided I might as well go all the way and and season with dried basil and dry oregano. Then, they went to the oven for 45 minutes, at 425F, and turned every 15 minutes.

When I got them out of the oven, they were beautiful. And their flavors were amazing. The notes of each one of the ingredients balanced the other, and they allowed the taste of the kohlrabi to shine. It definitely tasted better than cauliflower (which I love), and slightly less sweet than a red cabbage/apple salad. One thing to note is that, if you attempt making this, and you are unfamiliar with the yam, you may want to add it to the roasting pan like 10-15 minutes after the rest of the combo go in, so it is less crunchy, and you have time to acquaint yourself with its texture before you have to deal with the crunchy factor. I loved it, though. I also loved the shiraz that stopped by to make sure everything was in order.

Something like this pairs well with a mayo/ketchup combo of a sauce/dip. But in the interest of health, you can skip it, and instead you can combine it with something juicy, like baked chicken thighs, with sautéed onions and garlic. Any tender meat would pair well. Back home, we normally eat this kind of food with codfish, cooked with onions, garlic and olive oil. You can make a simple olive oil/garlic sauce as a dressing, and it would go very well. Actually, the mayo/ketchup dressing can also be lighten up using 1 part mayo, 2 parts greek yogurt, and 1 part ketchup. Additionally you can have some greek yogurt and add your favorite vinegar, and some dried herbs and even some fresh garlic. It's all good. 

By the end of the evening I had made a new friend. And now that kohlrabi has a place in my kitchen, it will be invited back. Normally I don't have roots and plaintains sitting around, so maybe next time the kohlrabi will make it into a soup... Or maybe not. What can I say? ...I'm kinda moody.