Thursday, 28 August 2008

Cuban green plantain soup

Polish: plantan / banan skrobiowy
Swedish: kokbanan
Portuguese: banana-da-terra
Dutch: bakbanaan
German: Gemüsebanane / Kochbanane
French: banane plantain
French Antillais: banane farine
Korean: 요리용 바나나
Arabic: ‏موز الجنة

Green (unripe) plantain soup could be eaten anywhere where plantains grow, but the recipe I post here is Cuban. Sopa de plátano verde has some variants, as you will realise while reading the recipe, and tastes absolutely wonderful. Plantains should be green. I don't know what happens if they are ripe and yellow, well, surely the taste won't be the same.

see also: Ecuadorian green plantain stuffed fritters

600 ml vegetable stock (optionally water)
*1 unripe, green plantain
1 onion
**(optionally some more vegetables, like 1/2 sweet potato, 1 carrot, a handful of chickpeas, 1 potato, chopped parsley green, 1 celery stalk)
cumin, salt, pepper

1. Peel green plantain. It may be easier if you cut the peel lengthwise. Cut into 1-2 cm chunks or cut very thin chips. Fry them in oil.

2. Heat the stock in a saucepan and when starts to boil, add resting vegetables (**but this is optionally; some people prefer just to taste plantains. Anyway, I took 1 small potato, diced, and a handful of canned chickpeas. *If you decide to not take any other vegetables, you may want to take 2 plantains).

3. Back to plantains. If you have chunks, work with a fork to mash already fried pieces, add 1 cup of stock, bring to boil (it will be thick) and pour into the saucepan with the rest of the stock. If you chave chips, fry them until crispy, pulverize in a blender and add to the stock. Cook until all the ingredients are soft. Now it's up to yu if you want to puree everything until smooth or puree only a half or mash vegetables with a fork. I like smooth pureed soups but some crispy pieces are always welcome.
You may put some fried onion chunks on the top and serve with lemon slices

1st variant: smoothy pureed

2nd variant: with chunks


pelomojado said...

chciałam zapytać gdzie udało Ci się dostać w warszawie plantany? będę wdzięczna za info na mail!:)

Ewa said...

@Pelomojado, niestety w PL nie, kupowałam je, kiedy mieszkałam w Niemczech... :(