Recipe: Twice fried Plantains with Mango Mint Chutney

This dish isn't like 123go superfast, but it's pretty difficult to mess up. The Plantains are like junkfood from a universe where junkfood is all-natural and not unhealthy, and the chutney - well, it has never met Mr. Plantain before - it's sweet and sour and hot and salty. You know - all the tastes. Make the chutney first because it needs to be refrigerated. It keeps pretty well too. These recipes are enough for a generous side-dish for two people.

CHUTNEY:

1 Mango
1/4 small onion
1 jalapen~o
1/4 cup mint (from your garden)
1/4 cup cilantro
1 T olive oil
dash cinamon
1 clove
tiny dash nutmeg
1 lime or lemon
brown sugar
salt

Cut up small and smaller: onion and jalapeno (the trick to reducing the spiciness is to remove all the seeds and perhaps the "veins" - the white bits inside - I remove them when I'm sharing the food with my mother, but it's better with some spice to it...)

Heat oil and spices (not herbs) in pan for 30 sec (don't let oil smoke). I also put in some cardamom and turmeric 'cause I love it.

Put in jalapeno and onion and 2 dashes of salt (1/8 tsp?) - stir fry for 3-5 mins until softened but not caramelized.

Meanwhile, cut mango up pretty small, and the mint and cilantro. Don't skimp on the mint!

Throw the mango in (you might want to find the clove and get it out first)

Stir-fry for 1 min, then add mint, stir-fry for a minute more.

Remove from heat an put in ceramic bowl, add cilantro, a big pinch of brown sugar, and squeeze in the juice of one lime.

Mix it all around, and put it in the fridge to cool. OK!


TWICE-FRIED PLANTAINS:

I used sweet plantains. If you want to try regular ones, tell me how it went - they cook longer and are harder. You will want to deep fry plantains very hot - that's why you can't use vegetable oil - it will end up smoking, and if you turn it down it will end up greasy.

2 plantains
Crisco or high-smoke oil
red chile powder (not the super-hot kind), or chipolte pepper powder (I like the smokey taste of this)
cumin
salt

Peel and cut plantains into 1 inch long bits. Don't cut diagonal, cut strait!

In a fry pan (a wok won't work well) pre-heat crisco until very hot, but not smoking - it should be about 1/2 an inch deep so that when you add the plantains they will be pretty much submerged - if a bit of plantain starts frying as soon as it hits the oil you are ready.

Fry the plantains until light brown on one side, flip, fry 'til other side is brown. Use tongs!

Take them out, put on paper towels to soak up oil.

While still hot, but not burning hot, take a big thick glass cup or something and smoosh them down until they are pretty flat. You know, stand up like cylinders and then flatten them down like thick coins. Don't mash them so hard that they break. This is the fun part.

Put them in the fry pan again and fry until golden brown all over. Don't let them get too dark brown - they have sugar so they can burn easier than potatoes.

Really shake the oil off when removing, and put on paper towels again.

While still hot, shake on chile and a tiny bit cumin and a little salt.

EAT WITH CHUTNEY!!!!