Whenever I go out to a Latin American restaurant I always find myself hoping to find Maduros, or fried plantains, on the menu. These slightly sweet banana/potato fruits are one of my favorite things to eat. I have seen them in the grocery store before, yet I've been afraid to cook any up because I was sure to cook them the way I've had them in restaurants would require some secret recipe that I did not posses. But I finally bit the bullet and made the suckers.
For the full meal, we had rice-a-roni and my families grilled shish kabobs.
The plantain were extremely easy to make:
1 fully ripe plantain (brown to black peel, using green plantains is called Platanos and that requires some mashing and extra stuff)
1/4 cup oil
Salt
Just heat the oil up in a frying pan. Peel and cut the plantain diagonally. On medium to medium high heat, fry the plantains on each side for 1-3 mins. Apply salt immediately after taking them off the heat. After cooking lay them on a plate with a paper towel to soak up the excess oil.
The shish kabobs are also pretty easy:
1 large red onion
1 8oz packet whole mushrooms
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 sack of cherry tomatoes
2 large boneless stake
garlic powder
oil
salt
pepper
Cut the mushroom into small wedges, bell peppers into equal sized bits, and the stake into wedges, and leave the mushrooms and cherry tomatoes whole. Using 10 inch rods, skewer ingredients randomly. Mixing them all up allows for the flavors to mix and mingle when you cook them. If you put each ingredient on each skewer separately it might not come out as nice. Once they are all prepped, drizzle or brush on a little oil and add the salt, garlic, and pepper (or other seasonings if you want). The oil will help the seasoning to stick. Grill on high heat for 10 mins, rotating half way.
The rice-a-roni is just from the box, but it rounded out this dish just right in my opinion.
