Tostones are popular in Cuban cooking and are twice-fried plantains. I had one yellow plantain and one green plantain so decided to use both to explore the contrast between the sweeter, banana-like yellow fruit and its starchy, green companion.
Honey-Soy Tuna Steaks
2 Tuna steaks
3 Tablespoons honey
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh ginger
Steps:
1.) Marinate the steaks in the other ingredients for at least 30 minutes.
2) Grill/cook steaks until desired done-ness. I went for pretty rare because that's what Arlo likes.
Mango Salsa
I guess mango salsa is kind of boring, but it went quite well with the tuna and the tostones.
Ingredients:
1 ripe mango
1 red tomato
1 orange tomato
1 red bell pepper
1 white bell pepper
3 green onions (whites only)
juice of 1 orange
1 spicy red/orange/yellow pepper (habanero works, I used a citrus-y pepper that was EXTREMELY hot. yikes)
Don't let this pepper's friendly appearance fool you...Steps:
1.) Chop everything (make sure the spicy pepper is finely chopped!) and mix together all ingredients. Salt to taste.
Tostones
Peeling the green plantain was kind of a pain, so be prepared. You kind of need to cut it off because it sticks to the flesh.
Ingredients:
olive oil
plantains
salt
Steps:
1.) Cut plantains in about 1 inch slices
2.) Fry in olive oil until slightly brown
(These are the green plantains pre-smashing and the yellow plantains post-smashing)3.) Remove from oil and smash flat with a fork (or press if you have one)
4.) Re-fry until crispy. Season with salt.
The green plantains were very good. Nice and crisp texture with a potato-chip/banana-like taste. The yellow plantains stayed pretty mushy (not enough starch in them, I guess) but were still pretty tasty. These were also fun to make! Keep in mind that the green plantains (with their high starch content) take longer to cook.
My camera ran out of batteries at this point so no pictures of it all together!
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