Plantains: The banana's cookin' cousin

It looks like a banana. It grows like a banana. But you need a knife to peel it, and if you try to eat it raw, you'll know right away this tropical fruit is no banana. It's the banana's cookin' cousin, the plantain.

Perhaps you've come across plantains in the produce section of the grocery store and mistook them for under-ripe bananas on steroids. Or maybe you've heard of plantains but haven't a clue what to do with them, hence they've never found their way into your grocery cart.

Plantains (pronounced PLAN-tanes) are a staple food across a broad swath of the Earth's midsection. Though they are prolific, they don't, strictly speaking, grow on trees; technically they are berries on the world's largest herb plant.

Bananas and plantains grow from a rhizome underground. What looks like a tree trunk is actually a tightly wrapped hollow-leaf stalk that supports the fruit.

The plantain's forebears are thought to have originated in Southeast Asia and India. From there they migrated to Africa, where they often turn up as street food, grilled over an open fire. In Nigeria, grilled plantains with roasted, salted peanuts are a popular roadside attraction. Sometimes the pulp is pounded into a mash, alone or with yams, then rolled into balls called fufu, which are served with sauce or stew. Ugandans steam plantains in banana leaves or ferment them to make beer.

Plantains are prominent in Caribbean, Central American and South American cooking as well. Spanish and Portuguese explorers brought plantains to the New World, and since then, according to the Puerto Rican cultural Web site, Puerto Ricans have never stopped inventing ways to cook them.

The development of Spanish-Caribbean cuisine owes a great deal to the dishes prepared by African slaves, in the opinion of cookbook author Anya von Bremzen.

In her book "Fiesta: A Celebration of Latino Hospitality" (Doubleday, 1997) she notes, "It was they who introduced the islanders to nourishing mashes made from various vegetables or tubers."

Today, tostones, chips made of crisp, twice-fried green plantains, are popular throughout the Caribbean, as are maduros fritos, sweet, ripe yellow plantains fried to a soft, luscious texture.

In Latino cooking, plantains also may be boiled, baked, grilled, stuffed or even pickled.

A starchy fruit, plantains may be eaten green or ripe, but they must always be cooked.

Sometimes called "potatoes of the air" in Africa, they can be prepared in many of the ways that potatoes are cooked.

Plantains are picked green and, like bananas, they continue to ripen if kept at room temperature. They sweeten as the starch converts to sugar.

Green plantains are the most starchy and potatolike. The pulp is ivory-colored, firm and rather bland. As plantains ripen they turn yellow and begin to exude a bananalike scent.

Yellow-skinned plantains (which may be spotted or streaked with black) are slightly sweet with bright-yellow pulp. They are good baked with roasted meats, or candied, as you would sweet potatoes.

When fully ripened, the skin of the plantain is completely black. They are at their softest, sweetest and most fragile at this point though they cannot be eaten raw.

The soft, yellow-orange pulp, often used in desserts, should be handled gently.

The simplest way to cook plantains, according to "The Joy of Cooking," is to pierce them in a couple of places and bake them in their skins for about 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Serve them with butter, salt and a squirt of lime juice.

Ripe plantains take extremely well to the grill, says Jack Bishop in his book "Vegetables Every Day" (HarperCollins, 2001). He grills three-inch pieces of peeled plantain cut lengthwise, and coated with a little canola oil and salt for about seven minutes. Then he brushes on a fruit glaze and cooks them about two minutes more.

Bishop suggests a not-too-sweet glaze made by simmering together ½ cup of orange juice, 2 tablespoons each of lime juice and brown sugar just until the sugar melts.

To peel plantains, slice off the top and bottom with a knife and make several shallow slits down the length of the fruit and one around its middle. Gently peel the skin away from the pulp. Green plantains are tougher to peel and can stain fingers and clothes with resin. Some cookbooks suggest peeling plantains under water to reduce mess and bruising.

Von Bremzen advises soaking peeled plantains in a bowl of water if you are not using them immediately, as you would with peeled potatoes.

Also, cooked plantains tend to get dry and hard when exposed to air. You can cook them up to one hour ahead if you keep them in their cooking liquid until ready to use.

Plantains are sold individually, not in bunches, and they are typically much larger than bananas — some can weigh up to 3 pounds. Available all year round and inexpensive, they are high in carbohydrates, low in fat and a good source of potassium, fiber and vitamins A, B1, B2 and C.

Providence Cicero may be reached at providencecicero@aol.com