Mashed Green Banana

This is one of my favorite recipes and can be replaced for mashed potatoes. You will need about two big green bananas per serving, butter or margarine, milk and a bit of salt and pepper. Skin the bananas and boil them until they are soft enough to easy pierce with a spilt. Drain and then mash with about one spoon of butter and 1/4 cup of milk per serving. Adjust to your taste. Add salt and pepper to taste. This is just love preparing mashed potatoes, and, in my opinion, better. Serve immediately. Anything you would use with mashed potatoes, such as gravy or garnish, can also be used with mashed green bananas.

Green bananas, just choice green plantains, have what we call “mancha”—they announcement a sap when you cut them open. To avoid this, you just apply some cooking oil in your hands and on the knife you’ll use to prevent the sap to stick to any of them. When you go and boil them, add some cooking oil to the hot water to prevent the sap to get on the saucepan.

Be careful—this mancha or sap stains a lot. If you get it on your clothes, more then probable you will not be able to get it off. There’s a local saying when you can’t deny being a Puerto Rican, people say that you have “la mancha de platano” or “plantain sap stain” like the fact that the sap from a green plantain or banana can’t never be cleaned or taken away.

Green bananas are generally said to b good for your stomach, especially if you are suffering from diarrhea. Though this recipe, since it involves deep-frying, may not be a very healthy one. However I am also mentioning a healthy version of it at the end so that you can have it without much guilt.

For this recipe I had made the gravy using onions and garlic, however there is a simple version of it as well which I will mention at the end.

Nutrition Information

Per serving: Calories—140, Total fat—6.5g, Saturated fat—5.5g, Polyunsaturated fat—0.2g, Monounsaturated fat—0.3g, Cholesterol—0.0mg, Sodium—4.8mg, Potassium—426mg, Total carbohydrate—22.3g, Dietary fiber—2.3g, Sugars—0.0g, Protein—1.6g.

Ingredients

4 green bananas

200g can peeled tomatoes; liquidized

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 inch ginger, grated

2 peppers, minced

1 table spoon vegetable oil

1 tea spoon mustard seeds

1/2 ta spoon cumin seeds

1/2 tea spoon turmeric

2 tea spoons coriander/cumin mix

Salt to taste

Fresh coriander for garnish

How to make Mashed Green Banana

Peel the green bananas, cut that into 1 inch chunks and place in water and boil with some salt. Heat oil in a pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds, as soon as thy start to splutter, add onions and fry until golden brown. Then add the tomatoes, garlic, ginger and the minced peppers, stir and fry for a few minutes. Add the bananas (reserve the water) and mash using a wooden spoon. Add the reserved banana water (2 cups) and mix so that it blends in with the bananas. Garnish with coriander and serve. I served it with chick peas and tomato and red pepper salsa.