How to make Fried Plantains. Nowadays you can find Plantain Chips in most supermarket snack food aisles. However, if you’ve never had plantains any other way you’re missing out. Plantains are a staple food in most tropical regions in the world, such as Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America. Today you can find plantains in most North American supermarkets alongside other tropical produce. Maybe you’ve even seen some and thought, those are some mighty big bananas! They’re obviously a type of banana, but the ones we commonly eat are called “dessert” bananas and are generally much smaller.
Similar to dessert bananas, when a plantain ripens, it becomes sweeter and its color changes from green to yellow to black. Green plantains are firm and starchy, and resemble potatoes in flavor. Yellow plantains are softer and starchy, but sweet. Extremely ripe plantains have a softer, deep yellow pulp that is much sweeter than the earlier stages of ripeness.
In Jamaica plantains are boiled, roasted or most commonly fried. Fried sweet plantains are eaten on the side with savory dishes like Stew Peas and Rice or Ackee and Saltfish. The trick to making delicious fried plantain is to know which ones to choose. It’s all about how the skin looks; the more beaten up the sweeter. Take a look at this video are you’ll get the picture.
