Today my undying love for potassium lead me to pit the plantain against its nemesis: the plantain. Let me explain. Plantains are great. They’re like bigger, harder, cheaper, more versatile bananas. They can be served sweet or salted, soft or hard, mashed or whole, and, as I’ve now put to the test, baked or fried.
As long as I’ve eaten plantains, I always thought you could only fry them. Fitting neatly into my rule that I can eat as much fried food as I want as long as I cook it, that was fine by me. But I had a few fiascos. Oils fires. “Blackened” (i.e. black) plantains. Oil burns on my hands. Oil stains on my clothes. Not to mention feeling like someone should roll me into bed after eating them with dinner. All this from a mere fruit? Yes. Well, a fried fruit. (Is that an oxymoron?) Ew.
So when I heard about baked plantains, I tried it out. Several times. The first few attempts were not great. They were hard. They were dry. They were flavorless. It’s been a few months now though and my many attempts have paid off. I’ve finally got it down.
Having spent so much time eating baked plantains, I was curious to see if they were actually better than fried plantains or if I had just convinced myself of that with cognitive dissonance in subconscious reaction to the somewhat frightening fries. This is my account of that experiment.
To bake:
Smear halved plantains with about ½ tablespoon of butter. Season with cinnamon to taste. Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 25 minutes.
That looks like a lot of butter. It's actually not.
To fry:
Cut plantains into short diagonals. Fry until golden brown on both sides in ½ inch canola, sunflower, or vegetable oil once the oil has time to heat.
Result: Yes. It’s true. The baked plantains are moister, sweeter, and best of all, healthier. They’re less of a hassle to prepare and clean up and they reheat better too. I doubt I’ll have a reason to return to fried plantains any time soon. EAT THESE SOON.
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