The Pregnant Kitchen

Our favorite meal is breakfast. Sitting in the sunroom sipping café is one of the pleasures that we both fully enjoy. If I were to say that it is part of what binds J and I together, I wouldn’t be exaggerating.

Our love of breakfasts was always there, but it became an “our” moment when we traveled to Brazil in 2002 for J’s research trip. We took a side trip for one week to Buzios, made famous by Bridgette Bardot (pronounced Brig-ditch-ee). We were there about two weeks before the season started, and stayed at a little pousada named Praia da tortuga. We were the only guests. At night, the staff didn’t see a reason to stick around so they went home, leaving us there with the hotel dog guarding our door.

In the morning, again just us, the hotel manager treated us to a huge display of the tropical fruits of Brazil–fruta de conde, papaya, abacaxi (pineapple), banana, maracujá (passion fruit)–and an assortment of breads, cheeses and jams. Local bees found our breakfast lovely, too, and decided to visit all of our fruit. Not quite the budding beekeeper, but having already done a photo story on a beekeeper back in the States, I recalled that bees may like fruit, but they like honey above all else. We put a little honey in a cup on the next table, where the bees promptly congregated, leaving us to all to feast without incident.

This is the vision of breakfast: a brand new day, quiet, a cornucopia on the table, and at peace.

Breakfast this morning was in that grand tradition. I served a cheddar cheese omelette for J, sautéed spinach greens, leftover vegetarian chili, sourdough bread toast with passion fruit (maracujá) and maqui preserves, and tostones.

Tostones is one of the things that I brought to the relationship that I can unambiguously brad about. I ate them while living in the Dominican Republic during college. I liked everything I ate there, even the boiled yucca that my colleagues tired of. But tostones, the fried sliced plaintains (platanos) that are smashed and fried again, are a treat better than french fries. Although the Dominicans never did it while I was there, we like to serve them with hot sauce. This morning, we ate them with guacamole that J made the evening before.

To make tostones, you have to decide–somewhat epistomologically–what kind of tostone you want. You can make them sweet like our friend Alyse does in New Orleans at her Cameroon-food restaurant by waiting until the platanos are yellow. Or, if you like them more like french fries, you can prepare them while the fruit is green. We prefer the green, although I have been secretly hiding a desire for the sweeter version. Can you feel the tension?

In either case, slice off the tips of the platanos and make a long slit along one of the biggest grooves in the fruit. You can take the peel off (harder if they are green) by holding the plantano in your hands, palms up, and shoving your thumbs under the peel. If worse comes to worse, gently peel the skin off with a knife.

Cut the platanos about 1/2″ to 3/4″ thick in order to make several little discs of fruit. Put them into already heated oil (your choice) and fry them until they begin to get brown marks on each side. I don’t immerse them in enough oil to cover them completely, so I flip the platanos about midway.

When you take out the platanos in order to crush them is where the magic happens. If you take the platanos out too soon, they are too chalky and they fall apart when smashed. If you do it too late, they just get too brown. Generally, I tend to take them out too early because I am hungry and impatient. Resist the urge, is my best advice.

The smashing is fun, and when the little one is big enough, I will let her do the smashing. One needs a large cup, jar or other clean implement of destruction handy. This stone, pan, cup, or underside of a bowl should not have a lip around the bottom. The lip would impede the crushed platanos from flattening and making the telltale star pattern.

Simply put, put the platano slice on cutting board or plate, and smash is flat with the jar (which is what I use). If you’ve cleared the pan of the first-fry batch, put it right back into the frying pan with the oil. (I like to use our cast iron skillet for this. It hold the heat and grease very well.) When you smash it, if it stays all in one piece easily and can be picked up without a problem by your fingers or a spatula, then you have timed the first fry well, grasshopper.If the whole thing wants to crack in half, or third, or generally doesn’t look good, it’s time to fry some more. Nonetheless, there is always some that falls off, so don’t think that it has to be perfect.

Fry until light brown on both sides. This second fry is important because without it, the center never really gets cooked well. If you like the sweet version, however, they can be cooked all the way through without smashing, but you have to cook them until dark. As for us, we smash both of them.

I’ll add photographs next time we make them. This time, I admit I was too hungry to concentrate on more than one thing.

J rated the breakfast a Yum Factor 4.