Carne con Platano

As a follow up to an interview with Trina (@MiamiDish) for WLRN's Under the Sun, we scheduled a cooking session, with Trina choosing the dish for me to try.

Recipe #72: Carne con Platano

I didn't even know this was in The Project. What a hidden little gem of a recipe.

Something magical happens when the platano and beef stew together in the pressure cooker. Much different than its Cuban cousin, Carne con Papas.

Because you use a platano pintón (a plantain that isn't mushy ripe, or maduro, nor very hard, or verde), there's a starchy sweetness that blends into the sauce that pops forth a tang with every bite.

Paired with killer rice, this is a big winner.

This second interview with Trina, that included the every day sounds of our crazy house, was fun. The kids ran around, the dog barked, the hubby peeled platanos and weighed in on his thoughts about The Project. My parents made a cameo, just in time to enjoy the meal.

When Trina asked my mom about the worst recipe so far, she referenced Huevos a la Florentina, which we all quickly remembered as really being a bad one.

Funny how we keep moving forward, recipe to recipe, and hardly stop to look back. Thanks, Trina, for helping us reflect on the past two and a half years. And how much more we have ahead.


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217: Carne con Platano

Ingredients:


2 lbs beef, cut into 2" pieces (beef for stews, as it is commonly labeled)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon oregano
1 bay leaf
1 large white onion
3 garlic cloves
1 green pepper
Parsley
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 cup dry cooking wine
3 green plantains (medium ripe)
Juice from one lime

1. In a food processor, blend the onion and garlic.
2. Remove the onion and garlic and pour into a bowl.
3. Add the green pepper and parsley to the food processor and blend.
4. Remove the green pepper and parsley and pour into a bowl.
5. Heat the oil in the pressure cooker.
6. Add the meat and fry until browned on both sides.


7. Add the dry spices and the bay leaf to the meat and mix well.


8. Add the onion and garlic to the meat and mix well.


9. Add the green pepper and parsley to the meat and mix well.


10. Peel and cut the plantains and toss in the lime juice while the meat and seasonings cook for a few minutes. (lime juice optional)
11. Add the tomato sauce, vinegar, cooking wine and plantains to the meat.


12. When everything comes to a boil, top the pressure cooker and let the pressure set.
13. When the pressure is set, lower the heat to medium-low and let cook for 45 minutes.


Serve over white rice. Serves 6-8.



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Pan de Platano (Banana Bread)

A banana is a Platano Johnson in Cuban. Why? No se. That's just what the long yellow banana is called.

It just is.

We never had banana bread in our house growing up and the only person I ever knew of as a banana bread baker was Rosana, my best friend's mom. I just chalked that up to her growing up in Miami, not because she was Cuban.

She used to gift her banana bread -- it was that good. And when Diana had her own place, I'd see the rotten bananas in her fridge, just like at her mom's house, and I knew she'd have some banana bread to share in the near future.

I had bananas that were rotten (read: perfect for this recipe) and had placed them in the fridge to stop the ripening process a few days before making this recipe.





They were perfect, mashable and so sweet. Que rico.

While reading through Recipe #542: Pan de Platano, I didn't realize that Nitza asks you to fold the dry ingredients plus the wet ingredients into the butter, sugar and eggs. I beat the ingredients, and as Nathan from La Cocina de Nathan warned, the consistency of the banana bread was a bit denser than if I would have folded the ingredients together.

But the taste was just right. And such an easy recipe to for those rotten bananas that always seem to be in my house -- and yours.

I think I know what to make for Rosana for Christmas.





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215: Pan de Platano (Banana Bread)

Ingredients:



1 cup ripe banana pulp
1 teaspoon lime juice
3 Tablespoons milk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon double acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Peel the bananas and discard skin. Mash bananas.




3. Add the lime juice to the mashed bananas to prevent them from turning brown.
4. In a blender or with a hand mixer, mix the mashed bananas with lime juice and the milk.



5. Sift the dry ingredients - flour, double acting baking powder, salt, baking soda.



6. Using the hand mixer, beat the butter.
7. Add the sugar to the butter, a little at a time.



8. Add the eggs to the butter, one at a time, mixing well after each one.



9. Alternate folding in the dry ingredients and the banana wet ingredients to the butter mixture.
10. Optional: add the nuts, dusted with a teaspoon of flour, to the batter.
11. Fill a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan with the batter.



12. Bake for one hour - an hour and ten minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.



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