Understated and ridiculously comforting, mofongo is a delicious Puerto Rican dish that's worth getting to know.
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00:00 Hey y'all, it's Brooke in the Delish Kitchen studios,
00:02 making a dish that's very near and dear to my heart.
00:05 It's the Caribbean staple, mofongo.
00:07 I could eat mofongo year round.
00:09 Good mofongo is only a few ingredients.
00:11 You've got some green plantain,
00:12 a little bit of garlic,
00:13 and some ground up fried pork rinds or chicharron.
00:17 It's a dish that has Caribbean roots,
00:19 hailing from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
00:21 So you already know it's gonna be good.
00:23 One that we're making is super simple
00:28 with just the pork chicharron as the add-in.
00:30 But if you're making this at home, you can go crazy.
00:33 My favorite version has pernil, which has roast pork in it.
00:36 I've seen shrimp mofongo, chicken mofongo,
00:39 veggie mofongo, all kinds.
00:41 The first step to preparing the plantain for your mofongo
00:44 is to peel the plantain.
00:46 Sometimes the peel can be a little bit stiff,
00:48 so if you need to grab a paring knife to help you,
00:50 that's perfectly okay.
00:52 We're gonna cut this into 3/4 inch to one inch size pieces.
00:56 Then you'll be all set to fry the plantain.
00:59 Get a big skillet, fill it with oil,
01:01 and heat it to about 375.
01:03 Since plantain is honestly on the blander side,
01:08 you're gonna need to pack a lot of flavor
01:09 into the things that you add to it.
01:11 That's where this garlic comes in.
01:13 Instead of leaving it whole or slicing it,
01:15 we're gonna grate it into really small pieces
01:17 so that it can incorporate with all of that plantain
01:20 and provide a really pungent, garlicky flavor.
01:22 To do that, we're gonna take two large garlic cloves.
01:25 We're gonna get a microplane and just grate them down
01:27 until we have enough garlic
01:29 to make this thing taste really good.
01:31 The other thing that's gonna give our mofongo
01:33 all of its flavor is fried pork skin
01:36 or chicharron or pork rinds.
01:38 This is something you can absolutely find
01:40 in the snack aisle in your grocery store.
01:42 That's what we did.
01:43 Or if you're feeling really ambitious,
01:44 you can make chicharron at home
01:46 by deep frying some pork skin
01:49 until it gets nice and crispy and golden brown.
01:51 Then you just let it dry out,
01:52 and you'll have essentially exactly
01:54 what we have in these bags.
01:55 To get this into the mofongo,
01:57 we're going to crush these
01:58 into really, really fine, small pieces
02:00 so that it can distribute evenly
02:02 throughout the mofongo mix
02:03 and just flavor every single bite
02:05 with porky, salty goodness.
02:07 I've got my pork rinds all crumbled up.
02:09 My hands are nice and exfoliated now
02:11 from the little sharp porky bits.
02:14 There's still a couple big, chunky pieces in there.
02:16 It's not all completely like fine dust,
02:19 but I think that's good
02:20 'cause you're gonna want some of that
02:21 crunchy, porky texture
02:23 when you're biting into the mofongo.
02:24 Now that we've got our plantain all sliced up,
02:27 it's time to give them a good fry.
02:28 When I'm frying plantain,
02:29 or anything really,
02:31 and it's not a deep frying kind of situation,
02:34 I like to use a cast iron skillet
02:36 because cast iron holds heat really well,
02:39 and your temperature won't be fluctuating
02:40 all crazy when you add stuff in.
02:42 It'll definitely still fluctuate,
02:43 but cast iron, you're more likely to stay
02:46 somewhere in the temperature range that you want.
02:48 We're gonna add two cups of oil to the pan.
02:51 Heat that over medium-high heat to 375 degrees,
02:54 and then we'll be ready to fry our plantain.
02:56 To cook these green plantains,
02:57 we're gonna technically do what's called a shallow fry.
03:00 We don't have a ton of oil in here,
03:01 so something like this deep fry thermometer
03:03 probably isn't gonna get the job done
03:05 'cause it's not gonna go far enough into the pan
03:07 to really give us an accurate reading.
03:09 So for things like this,
03:11 eyeball it after you've done it for long enough,
03:13 but if you're still a newbie for this kind of thing,
03:15 or it's your first or second time,
03:16 use a probe thermometer.
03:17 Definitely hold it to the side
03:19 so that you're not making direct contact
03:21 with the bottom of the pan,
03:22 but this should give you a good ballpark reading
03:26 of how hot you want your oil to be,
03:27 which in this case is 375.
03:29 My oil's nice and hot.
03:30 I'm gonna go ahead and start adding my plantains in.
03:32 They're gonna take about six to eight minutes
03:34 to fry all the way through,
03:36 and you wanna make sure you flip them halfway through
03:38 so that the whole entire piece
03:39 gets nice and golden brown and even.
03:41 We're gonna work really quickly here.
03:42 So these plantain have about a minute left in the oil.
03:46 As soon as they're done,
03:46 I'm gonna use a spider to take them out
03:48 and drain them on these paper towels.
03:50 The key to good mofongo is mashing the plantain
03:53 while it's still hot and mashing it in batches.
03:56 Mashing it in batches will make sure
03:58 that we get everything evenly distributed throughout.
04:00 So we're gonna mash half of this
04:01 with the chicharron and the garlic.
04:03 Then we're gonna add the other half of the plantain,
04:05 the other half of the chicharron.
04:07 Keep mashing until it's all homogenous.
04:09 If your mofongo is a little bit dry
04:11 and won't hold together
04:13 when you press it with your two fingers,
04:15 you can add a little bit of beef broth
04:16 to start loosening up the mixture
04:18 until you get to the consistency that you want.
04:20 This mofongo is darn near ready.
04:23 I'm gonna taste it really quick
04:24 just to make sure it's seasoned enough.
04:26 I'm gonna give it a little tiny bite.
04:28 I don't think it needs much help.
04:31 I'm gonna do like maybe two more pinches of salt.
04:35 That's pretty much it.
04:35 That's mofongo.
04:37 The last part of making this dish
04:39 is getting it into that quintessential mofongo shape,
04:42 which if you haven't noticed,
04:44 it's just an upside down ramekin.
04:46 This one is about six ounces.
04:48 I'm gonna spray a tiny bit of Pam in the ramekin.
04:50 Not too much.
04:51 I don't wanna interrupt the flavor
04:52 of what we got going on here.
04:53 So I'm gonna load it with the mofongo,
04:55 gently tap it and slide the ramekin off.
04:59 And we'll be left with that lovely little dome shape
05:01 that we're all familiar with for mofongo.
05:03 This is everything that I want
05:04 at the end of a really long, hard day.
05:07 I have a couple of accoutrements around the side.
05:09 I've got some lime wedges.
05:11 I've got some of that beef broth
05:12 that I used to bring the mofongo together.
05:14 And I also have a little bit of tomato sauce.
05:16 That's my personal favorite way to eat mofongo.
05:18 So I just seasoned a little bit up
05:20 and I like to dip my mofongo in that
05:23 or just pour it straight on top.
05:24 My heart is full.
05:28 Mofongo just does it for me every time.
05:31 It's so salty.
05:33 It's so got a little crispy crunchies in there.
05:35 And honestly, this is the best I think plantain can be.
05:38 Of course you got your sweet plantain
05:40 that you can fry up and it's so delicious.
05:42 But this really speaks volumes
05:44 for the value of a good green plantain.
05:47 The plantain is neutral enough
05:48 that it really carries all that garlic through.
05:50 'Cause remember we didn't really cook the garlic.
05:51 It just kind of went in raw.
05:52 So you get a little bit of that raw garlic flavor.
05:55 Honestly, the beef broth and the tomato sauce are so crucial
05:58 'cause it'll soften this right up.
06:00 And if you have any little dry pockets,
06:02 these will make it way easier and more enjoyable to eat.
06:05 So if you're looking for more delicious, salty,
06:09 porky, easy Caribbean recipes just like this one,
06:14 keep it right here at delish.com.
06:16 (upbeat music)
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