Topic “cilantro”

Since I'm leaving in a few days (I'm going to D.C. for the rest of the week), I decided I had to clean my fridge of all the food that might spoil during my absence. Also, a friend of mine challenged me to make something I've never made before, something requiring a special trip to the store, or a squash-based soup.

I told her that, since I'm leaving, I don't want to buy more food that might spoil. I didn't feel like eating squash soup either, so I finally decided to use an ingredient I've never used in cooking before: mangoes!

I bought a bunch of green plantains the other day, as you can see from one of my recent posts. I had only a few options before they started to ripen, so I originally decided to make tostones and freeze them. Then an idea occurred to me.

Have I ever mentioned that plantains are to Puerto Ricans what shrimp are to Bubba. Plantain is the fruit of the mountains. You can fry it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's, uh, plantain canoes, plantain creole, plantain chips. Pan fried, deep fried, twice-fried. There's sweet plantain, green plantain, mashed plantain, smashed plantain, plantain soup, plantain stew, plantain with syrup, plantain and veggies, plantain ice cream, plantain sandwich. That's about it.

Part of the Puerto Rican tradition, the parrandas is when a bunch of us get together to eat, sing, and visit people to sing, and eat, at their places. This usually goes all night long and many times the visitees are not even notified. This makes it all the more fun.

It's not guacamole. It's not pico de gallo either. It's both! I had some leftover avocado from the hummucado sandwhich, but it was not enough for making guacamole. I think that the next best thing when you want guacamole, but you don't have it, is pico de gallo.