Thursday, December 4, 2008

Platanos en Tentacion (Plantains Temptation Style?)

I got this recipe thanks to Sonia R. Martinez who is a nice Cuban lady also a cook book author and writer and has a few blogs one of them is "Sonia's Hawaii" usually focuses on her life in Hawaii, food, and gardening. She is also the wonderful moderator of a Cuban group I love called "Cocina Cubana in the Exile" and does a great job at it.

She has given me permission to post her recipe on my blog, of course I slightly altered it, I changed the ratio's a little bit because the original recipe was for "3 plantains" and I used "4 plantains" also her mother uses "sherry" wine for this, the recipe calls for dry white wine, but I used "Edmundo Vino Seco Dorado" (it's what I usually use and what I have on hand along with red wine)

Platanos en Tentacion is a rich sweet plantain dish, it is ripe plantains simmered in a rich cinnamon infused butter, wine, and sugar syrup. This is a Cuban recipe, but to be honest it was never made in my house (we always fried the plantains and used it for other stuff) that's why I put no recipe of my own. Other countries have their own "version" of Platanos en Tentacion but the version I am presenting is the Cuban version.

Ingredients:
-4 dead ripe black plantains

-1/3 and 1 1/2 tablespoons white cane sugar
-1/3 and 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-2 cinnamon sticks broken into pieces
-4 tablespoons butter
-4 tablespoons dry white wine

Directions:
(1)Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Butter a baking dish.

(2)Peel plantains, cut them in half, place on greased baking dish, insert broken cinnamon sticks into plantains, mix two types of sugars and cinnamon powder, sprinkle half of the sugar over plantains, drizzle all plantains with some wine, add more sugar, and dot it with butter cut into little pieces.

(3)Place in oven and bake for about 1 hour until golden brown and bubbly,

NOTE:
-Sonia say's this is not meant to be dessert you can eat it with your food, I agree with her.
-If you wish you can have it as dessert or snack, it would be delcious with some vanilla ice cream.
-The plantains have to be dead ripe black because that is when they are at their sweetest and softer, do NOT worry it won't be mooshy or anything they are still firm just very sweet.
-I wasn't so patient my plantains could've been riper like Sonia say's "black with a whitish cast" something a long those lines.

Oh and here is a question for anyone who may be reading this, How do you make your Platanos en Tentacion? Or a similar dish? I'm open to new ideas :)"

LASTLY... click on the final last picture and you can see in detail how wonderful it looks, the size of the picture there doesn't give the dish justice :)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hola, Nathan. So glad you enjoyed my mom's recipe (with your own twist, as every good cook does) I clicked on the last photo to enlarge it and they look good enough to lick right off the screen!

Brad said...

Delicious!
Brad

Marilyn said...

Nathan,
I am debating... should I be nice and make it for the men in the family. You see, there is a war here, between the cook, who prefers tostones and the men que quieren platanos maduros every time.
Good job!

Finla said...

Wow this is sinfully delicious. Superb.
Came here through Finest Foodies Friday!

Teresa Cordero Cordell said...

Congrats on your FFF award. I can see why you were nominated and won. Wonderful photos. Love those platanos!

Nathan said...

Sonia,
Thanks Sonia glad you approve haha :)

BRD,
Thanks!

Marilyn,
Ha ha the cook always wins I bet, be nice and make them some maduros haha, you know there's this little "Bodeguita" that has many Cuban products, they have a section with the Plantains at all levels of ripeness (green, yellow, spotted, and black) ha ha. When on special we buy tons of green plantains and we cook with them at all stages of ripeness (there's so much we Cuban cooks can do with plantains)

Happy Cook,
Thank you, haha I ate about 4 big slices which is about 2 plantains lol. trust me we have more sinful stuff out there lol Glad you liked it.

Teresa Cordero Cordell,
Thank you up until I recieved my second to the last comment I was ignorant of Finest Foodie Fridays lol. I really do need to go read around the foodieblogroll and such. Again thanks for the compliment, I'm no professional photo expert thingamabob but I try my best :)

Hilda said...

Wnderfull... delicious....

(I must study english again or translate this recipes)

Kisses from Spain
Hilda

Nathan said...

Hilda,
If you ever want me to translate a recipe for you I'll gladly do it and send it to you :) you can email me and I'll email you back the translated version, although my Spanish writing is a little... my grammar sucks but it is very understandable still :)