Getting Started with Plantains: A Guide to Preparing Tostones

When it comes to preparing plantains, there are a few things you need to know in order to get them right. The first step is to choose the right plantain for the job. Not all plantains are created equal, and some are better suited for frying than others. Look for plantains that are greener on the side where they were attached to the tree, as these will be starchier and more suitable for tostones.

Once you've selected your plantains, it's time to prepare them for cooking. The main peel should be removed, and any stringy or tough bits should also be taken off. This will help ensure that your tostones are nice and smooth. If you've ever used plantains before, you'll know they're quite starchy and look like bananas, but they're actually more like potatoes in terms of texture.

Now it's time to cut the plantains into thick slices, about a quarter inch in thickness. This will help them hold their shape when frying. The next step is to fry the plantains once, which will help remove some of the excess starch and give them a nice crispy exterior. It's worth noting that you don't want to season the plantains before they go into the oil, as this can denature the oil and affect its flavor.

After the first round of frying, it's time to shock the plantains in cold water to remove some of the starch and help them become fluffier. To do this, mix some salt with water to create a brine solution, and then submerge the fried plantains into the solution for a few minutes. The acidity in the salt will help break down the starches and make the plantains softer.

Once the plantains have had time to sit in the brine solution, it's time to add ice to the water to further shock them. This will help stop any cooking that may still be happening and give the plantains a nice texture on the inside. The idea is to get these tostones really crispy on the outside while staying fluffy on the inside.

Finally, it's time to flatten out the plantains into patties using a plate or spatula. This will help them cook more evenly in the oil and give them a nice presentation. Once they're flattened, add any remaining salt water mixture to the pan with the oil, and gently place the plantain patties back into the hot oil.

The key to getting really good tostones is to not overcook them after the second frying. You want to get them nice and golden brown on the outside while still keeping them soft and fluffy on the inside. This can be a bit tricky, as some people may end up with tostones that are too crispy or too pale. However, with practice and patience, you'll get the hang of it.

One tip to help achieve the perfect texture is to fry the plantains in batches, depending on how many they will hold in the pan. This will ensure that each batch cooks evenly and doesn't become overcooked by the time it's done frying. It's also worth noting that adding a bit of oil to the pan after removing the first batch of plantains can help prevent them from sticking together.

Once your tostones are cooked, remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon or skimmer, and place them on a paper towel-lined plate to drain any excess oil. The next step is to sprinkle a pinch of salt over the top of each tostone, which will help bring out their natural sweetness and add flavor.

In addition to being a delicious side dish, tostones are also incredibly versatile. They pair well with a wide range of foods, including pulled pork, grilled meats, salads, and even as a topping for breakfast dishes like eggs or chorizo. So don't be afraid to experiment and find your own favorite ways to use these tasty little gems.

If you enjoyed this recipe and want to see more of Chef Caleb's cooking adventures, please do like and subscribe to our channel. We're always looking for new recipes to try and share with our audience, so if you have any suggestions or ideas, be sure to let us know in the comments below. And don't forget to check out our Patreon page for exclusive content and behind-the-scenes peeks into our kitchen.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign this week we have these really simple and delicious twice fried plantains called tostones now before we get started I'd like to remind everyone that we have an affiliate link with Chef's temp down in the description below if you need a kitchen thermometer or meat probe and you use code love your food on checkout you'll get 15 off your order we also have a patreon if you'd like to support us there and I'll put a link for that in the description below as well and our ingredients are we have these beautiful plantains you want them pretty ripe you don't want them to be green you want them pretty dark brown some salt and some water and some neutral oil for fly for uh for frying so the first thing we're going to do is peel our plantains and uh you want to get as much of that peel off as you can you want to get any of those little stringy things off as well uh once you've got the the main peel off now if you've ever used plantains before you'll know they're quite a starchy they look like bananas but they're much more starchy like a potato and they're a little tougher than a banana they're not quite as mushy now we're gonna cut these pretty thick actually and what we're going to do is we're going to fry them once and then squish them so we're going to change the the shape of them pretty significantly by the time they are done you'll see they're they're a little tougher than a banana they're quite uh they're actually a little bit tough to cut so we're going to get our salt water ready so some salt and water uh we're just gonna let that sit and dissolve for a little while before we add the fried plantain to it we're going to actually add a bunch of ice to this to sort of shock them and we'll show you that in once we've done the first round of frying so here we go we've got and this is a shallow frying we're not deep frying these so you know uh quarter inch eighth of an inch of oil in your pan and just a neutral Oil we're using canola here and we're gonna get one side of our plantains in there now don't season these you don't want to Salt these before they go in because you'll denature your oil you you want to wait until afterwards to season these and that's part of the reason we're salting the water that we're shocking them in it's going to season them as well so once they uh are pretty much done on one side they're gonna actually kind of release themselves so once they have released themselves they're they're done you'll see that nice brown color on them so we're going to take those out of the pan once they've got some nice color on both sides now is when we're going to add that ice into our salt water and just make sure it's nice and cold in there and then for each of our tostones we're going to take just a plate or whatever you like you can use a spatula or a spoon or whatever and we're just going to flatten them out a little bit and they're going to go from there into that into that cold salty water now this is going to do a couple of things this is like twice fried potatoes where you refrigerate them between and it sort of helps the starches sort of collect and and and and solidify and it makes them really nice and fluffy on the inside the salt in there is also going to help season these a little bit um because we're not we didn't season them before they hit the oil now before they go back in the oil you definitely want to Pat any of the water off of the outside because adding really wet things into hot oil is a recipe for disaster so we want to Pat these as dry as we can and then very gingerly we're going to add these back into our hot oil and you can see there yeah really nice hot oil now they will take up more space now because they are flattened out and spread out and we're just really waiting for these to get quite a bit of color actually once they get nice and dark they get really nice and Jammy in the middle they're they're quite fluffy very soft and uh and yeah that really Jammy texture in the middle so they will soften up a little bit as they're frying the second time now some of these we pulled out maybe a little too early some of them got some really great colors some of them were a little pale they were all really delicious but the ones that got more color ended up being a little more sort of soft and and and and Jammy on the inside so once they come out of the oil you do want to do that little uh sprinkle of salt on there now we found that the ones that we didn't salt we tried a couple they were nice they were still seasoned from soaking in the salt water and there you go that's pretty much it uh really nice delicious these go with a lot of things that you know it's a really nice side dish it goes with uh it's super neutral and is a great starch to put on the side of something like pulled pork which we're gonna do next week uh or any other number of things if you like this recipe please do like and subscribe and if you have any recipes you'd like to see Chef Caleb trying on the Channel please let us know in the comments below we'd like to thank all of our patrons over on patreon I will put a link in the description below for that and remember to love your foodforeign this week we have these really simple and delicious twice fried plantains called tostones now before we get started I'd like to remind everyone that we have an affiliate link with Chef's temp down in the description below if you need a kitchen thermometer or meat probe and you use code love your food on checkout you'll get 15 off your order we also have a patreon if you'd like to support us there and I'll put a link for that in the description below as well and our ingredients are we have these beautiful plantains you want them pretty ripe you don't want them to be green you want them pretty dark brown some salt and some water and some neutral oil for fly for uh for frying so the first thing we're going to do is peel our plantains and uh you want to get as much of that peel off as you can you want to get any of those little stringy things off as well uh once you've got the the main peel off now if you've ever used plantains before you'll know they're quite a starchy they look like bananas but they're much more starchy like a potato and they're a little tougher than a banana they're not quite as mushy now we're gonna cut these pretty thick actually and what we're going to do is we're going to fry them once and then squish them so we're going to change the the shape of them pretty significantly by the time they are done you'll see they're they're a little tougher than a banana they're quite uh they're actually a little bit tough to cut so we're going to get our salt water ready so some salt and water uh we're just gonna let that sit and dissolve for a little while before we add the fried plantain to it we're going to actually add a bunch of ice to this to sort of shock them and we'll show you that in once we've done the first round of frying so here we go we've got and this is a shallow frying we're not deep frying these so you know uh quarter inch eighth of an inch of oil in your pan and just a neutral Oil we're using canola here and we're gonna get one side of our plantains in there now don't season these you don't want to Salt these before they go in because you'll denature your oil you you want to wait until afterwards to season these and that's part of the reason we're salting the water that we're shocking them in it's going to season them as well so once they uh are pretty much done on one side they're gonna actually kind of release themselves so once they have released themselves they're they're done you'll see that nice brown color on them so we're going to take those out of the pan once they've got some nice color on both sides now is when we're going to add that ice into our salt water and just make sure it's nice and cold in there and then for each of our tostones we're going to take just a plate or whatever you like you can use a spatula or a spoon or whatever and we're just going to flatten them out a little bit and they're going to go from there into that into that cold salty water now this is going to do a couple of things this is like twice fried potatoes where you refrigerate them between and it sort of helps the starches sort of collect and and and and solidify and it makes them really nice and fluffy on the inside the salt in there is also going to help season these a little bit um because we're not we didn't season them before they hit the oil now before they go back in the oil you definitely want to Pat any of the water off of the outside because adding really wet things into hot oil is a recipe for disaster so we want to Pat these as dry as we can and then very gingerly we're going to add these back into our hot oil and you can see there yeah really nice hot oil now they will take up more space now because they are flattened out and spread out and we're just really waiting for these to get quite a bit of color actually once they get nice and dark they get really nice and Jammy in the middle they're they're quite fluffy very soft and uh and yeah that really Jammy texture in the middle so they will soften up a little bit as they're frying the second time now some of these we pulled out maybe a little too early some of them got some really great colors some of them were a little pale they were all really delicious but the ones that got more color ended up being a little more sort of soft and and and and Jammy on the inside so once they come out of the oil you do want to do that little uh sprinkle of salt on there now we found that the ones that we didn't salt we tried a couple they were nice they were still seasoned from soaking in the salt water and there you go that's pretty much it uh really nice delicious these go with a lot of things that you know it's a really nice side dish it goes with uh it's super neutral and is a great starch to put on the side of something like pulled pork which we're gonna do next week uh or any other number of things if you like this recipe please do like and subscribe and if you have any recipes you'd like to see Chef Caleb trying on the Channel please let us know in the comments below we'd like to thank all of our patrons over on patreon I will put a link in the description below for that and remember to love your foodforeign this week we have these really simple and delicious twice fried plantains called tostones now before we get started I'd like to remind everyone that we have an affiliate link with Chef's temp down in the description below if you need a kitchen thermometer or meat probe and you use code love your food on checkout you'll get 15 off your order we also have a patreon if you'd like to support us there and I'll put a link for that in the description below as well and our ingredients are we have these beautiful plantains you want them pretty ripe you don't want them to be green you want them pretty dark brown some salt and some water and some neutral oil for fly for uh for frying so the first thing we're going to do is peel our plantains and uh you want to get as much of that peel off as you can you want to get any of those little stringy things off as well uh once you've got the the main peel off now if you've ever used plantains before you'll know they're quite a starchy they look like bananas but they're much more starchy like a potato and they're a little tougher than a banana they're not quite as mushy now we're gonna cut these pretty thick actually and what we're going to do is we're going to fry them once and then squish them so we're going to change the the shape of them pretty significantly by the time they are done you'll see they're they're a little tougher than a banana they're quite uh they're actually a little bit tough to cut so we're going to get our salt water ready so some salt and water uh we're just gonna let that sit and dissolve for a little while before we add the fried plantain to it we're going to actually add a bunch of ice to this to sort of shock them and we'll show you that in once we've done the first round of frying so here we go we've got and this is a shallow frying we're not deep frying these so you know uh quarter inch eighth of an inch of oil in your pan and just a neutral Oil we're using canola here and we're gonna get one side of our plantains in there now don't season these you don't want to Salt these before they go in because you'll denature your oil you you want to wait until afterwards to season these and that's part of the reason we're salting the water that we're shocking them in it's going to season them as well so once they uh are pretty much done on one side they're gonna actually kind of release themselves so once they have released themselves they're they're done you'll see that nice brown color on them so we're going to take those out of the pan once they've got some nice color on both sides now is when we're going to add that ice into our salt water and just make sure it's nice and cold in there and then for each of our tostones we're going to take just a plate or whatever you like you can use a spatula or a spoon or whatever and we're just going to flatten them out a little bit and they're going to go from there into that into that cold salty water now this is going to do a couple of things this is like twice fried potatoes where you refrigerate them between and it sort of helps the starches sort of collect and and and and solidify and it makes them really nice and fluffy on the inside the salt in there is also going to help season these a little bit um because we're not we didn't season them before they hit the oil now before they go back in the oil you definitely want to Pat any of the water off of the outside because adding really wet things into hot oil is a recipe for disaster so we want to Pat these as dry as we can and then very gingerly we're going to add these back into our hot oil and you can see there yeah really nice hot oil now they will take up more space now because they are flattened out and spread out and we're just really waiting for these to get quite a bit of color actually once they get nice and dark they get really nice and Jammy in the middle they're they're quite fluffy very soft and uh and yeah that really Jammy texture in the middle so they will soften up a little bit as they're frying the second time now some of these we pulled out maybe a little too early some of them got some really great colors some of them were a little pale they were all really delicious but the ones that got more color ended up being a little more sort of soft and and and and Jammy on the inside so once they come out of the oil you do want to do that little uh sprinkle of salt on there now we found that the ones that we didn't salt we tried a couple they were nice they were still seasoned from soaking in the salt water and there you go that's pretty much it uh really nice delicious these go with a lot of things that you know it's a really nice side dish it goes with uh it's super neutral and is a great starch to put on the side of something like pulled pork which we're gonna do next week uh or any other number of things if you like this recipe please do like and subscribe and if you have any recipes you'd like to see Chef Caleb trying on the Channel please let us know in the comments below we'd like to thank all of our patrons over on patreon I will put a link in the description below for that and remember to love your food\n"