Cuban cooking, tostones and mariquitas

[Inkanyezi]

Attention! Risk of severe injury
To avoid burns when deep frying, it is important that you work with dry hands and that your utensils are dry. A drop of water in the oil will explode as a grenade and spread blazing hot oil around the kitchen.
Special attention if you have children around. Deep frying is dangerous!

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Plantains are extensively used in Cuban cooking. There are courses a fufú, a creamy mash that can be made from plantain flour or boiled plantain, and mashed plantain where boiled plantain is mashed together with spices and chicharrón, and there are tostones and mariquitas, deep fried slices of the plantain. Tostones are thick slices that are first softened and then flattened before fried to crispness, while mariquitas are thin chips. I will show how they are made.

To make tostón, a plantain that is "pintón", slightly yellowing, is used. Below are two plantains, one is green and the other pintón. It should not be ripe, when ripe it can be used for making "maduro frito" in the frying pan. Tostones and mariquitas are deep fried.

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So I choose the yellowish one, the "pintón", to make my tostones. First I cut off the ends, and then I slit it lengthwise through the peel along the whole plantain, to open it.

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I open it up with my fingers and remove the whole peel. (If you want to use the peel for flattening, it is better to slit the peel on the convex side, so it can be removed whole.)

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I am not going to use it for flattening the tostones, so I'll just discard it, but often in the Cuban kitchen, the banana peel is used for flattening the tostones. You fold it and flatten the stumps of plantain in between. It is a bit messy however, and there is a risk of burns when handling hot plantain stumps, so I will use the bottom of a cup instead and a plate.

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So I cut up the whole stripped plantain into about two centimetre stumps (3/4").

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First the plantain stumps must be softened. Put them into the cold oil before heating. The oil should cover the plantain stumps.

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Heat until there are lots of bubbles emerging from the plantain stumps and ease the heating a bit in order not to burn them or making the crust too hard.

Note how I have turned the handle away, in order not to accidentally upset the skillet and let hot oil loose over the stove. Children should be well watched when you deep fry.

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When they are soft, you can try it first with one, you pick them all out of the oil to flatten them. After they are lifted out, you can raise the heat to deep frying temperature.

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I flatten them all out before putting them back into the hot oil. This is done while they are still hot, so you shouldn't touch them with your fingers. Always be aware that they are hot.

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The flattened stumps are then put back into the now hot oil for deep frying. As they now are wider, only half can be put in at the same time.

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They are fried until golden and then removed.

At this stage, you can salt them by turning them in shallow salted water on a plate and then letting them drain off and dry, but I prefer mine without salt.

Water close to deep frying is an imminent danger!
If you use water, keep it well aside and dry your hands before returning to the stove. Do not use the same utensils for turning tostones in salty brine as taking them out of the hot oil!

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When ready, the tostones have a crisp crunchy crust and are soft inside. They should not be burned, but a golden brownish tone.

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So what did I do with the other plantain, the green one?

I sliced it up with a cheese slicer to make mariquitas. In Cuba the banana chips are called mariquitas, but they have other names elsewhere, as "mariquita" sounds as a badname to many Spanish speakers. For example in Santa Cruz in Bolivia, they are called chipilos.

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The thin slices are put into the hot oil directly and deep fried till almost no more bubbles emerge and they attain a golden tone. Well done mariquitas are hard crispy chips. Cubans often take one in their left hand to push food onto the fork.

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[Shadowman]

Very nice, I like the background story and steps taken in preparing. Nice images as well.

[Inkanyezi]

Of course a dedicated deep fryer is better for this kind of cooking, but in Cuban kitchens people mostly use a skillet, just as I did. Special kitchen accessories aren't easy to get there, and people are mostly poor, too poor to buy a deep fryer even if available.

The oil I use here is canola, but the preferred fat is lard, which I don't have. Also coconut oil can be used, but it has a tendency to froth and will foam over if putting too much into the recipient. Lard is preferred for the taste.

[Wavelength]

Mouth watering....thank God, i have only to type this and need not say it...drool....

[John 2]

I've said it before, you learn something every day here. Thanks for sharing.

[bnnrcn]

Thanks for sharing nice recipes with nice pictures.

[IzzieK]

Toston seems nice to make...thanks for your story...

[Sergio M.]

Urban, thanks for a very interesting and delicious view into one of the culinary customs of Cuba.

Sergio

[Inkanyezi]

Thanks a lot for the feedback folks. When I had photography as one of my work requirements, instructions was what I mostly made.

To add some - the tostones should be consumed with the meal that is imminent, they won't feel fresh the day after. The mariquitas however, when well done, have a rather large shelf life. better the thinner you can slice them. Stored dry, they hardly ever could become bad.