I'm on a plantain rampage!!

I bought a bunch of green plantains the other day, as you can see from one of my recent posts. I had only a few options before they started to ripen, so I originally decided to make tostones and freeze them. Then an idea occurred to me.

How about stuffed tostones!

Okay, so great idea in hand, green plantains to execute it, and time to spare, I started to think what would I stuff them with: vegetables, of course. I decided to do that first, so here's what I used:

• 1 medium potato
• 1/2 onion
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 tablespoons sofrito
• 2 inch piece of zucchini
• 2 inch piece of yellow squash
• 1/2 jalapeño pepper
• 1/2 can of diced tomatoes
• bunch of cilantro
• splash of red wine

Start by chopping all of the ingredients into small pieces. This not only makes it easier (faster) to cook, but it's how we want them for stuffing the tostones. Sauté the potato, onion and garlic in a little bit of oil for a few minutes and add the sofrito to it. Cook for a few more minutes and start adding the zucchini, squash and jalapeño. Let it cook until it's all soft. Add some salt.

Now add the tomatoes with some of the liquid, drop in the chopped cilantro and pour some of that red wine into the mixture. Simmer until it's all cooked and ready. Set aside while you make the tostones.

Start by cutting the plantains into pieces about 1 to 1.5 inches thick. A large plantain should yield about eight of these. Soak them in salted water for about 15 to 30 minutes. In retrospect, I should have told you to do this before the veggies, so that they soak while you cook them. Too bad, though.

Fry them in a generous amount of oil until they start getting golden in color, but not quite. Turn them over and fry them on the other side.

Remove them from the pan, turn off the fire, and set the area for creating the actual tostones. Now, regular tostones are easy: you use whatever you have nearby to smash them into a flat shape. Stuffed tostones are a very different animal. They require skill and very specialized instrumentation. You need a tostonera de rellenos (stuffed toston maker). This is a special contraption that allows you to create the required shape for this very specific food. It serves no other purpose than making stuffed tostones. I'm serious.

Here's a diagram of how they work:

It might take you a while to grasp the concept, due to the complexity involved, but the explanation is simple: put the fried plantain in the center cavity, then smash to perfection! The resulting toston should contain a cavity. That's where you put your filling, but hold on! We're not done yet!

You have to, of course, fry the plantains again. Be careful here, since the new shape makes it harder to fry on both sides. Once you manage that, put them to dry on paper towel, and then stuff them well with your veggies (or whatever you decided to use).

I made 16 (2 plantains) of these guys and they were so good that I ate them all. I guess I should be ashamed of myself, or guilty for eating them all, but I assure you I am not. I enjoyed eating them almost as much as I enjoyed cooking them.

Victor recommends: 

Hunt's Diced Tomatoes - 8/14.5oz cans

Manufacturer: Hunt's

Part Number: #888210

Price: