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 :)

Salmon a la Vizcaina (Salmon in Vizcaina Sauce)

I got the idea to make this from one of my readers whom calls himself "Mamey" (his name is Omar) he was kind enough to comment my "Boniatillo" and share a recipe he made of Salmon in a Vizcaina type sauce. It sounded delicious, he pan-fried the salmon and added it to a delicous tomato based sauce served over sliced "Boniato" (a type of white sweet potato).

So today I made it, I kind of just followed my instincts and tried to imagine how it was done, and made the type of sauce my grandmother would use for "Bacalao a la Vizcaina" and just replaced the Bacalao with a well seasoned, pan-fried salmon it was wonderful try it you won't regret.

Oh I forgot I had a wonderful Boniato in my kitchen but half of it spoiled as I forgot about it and it was a couple weeks old (ooops) so I used regular brown potatoes instead.

Ingredients for Salmon:
-1 1/2 pounds salmon filets cut into medium large serving pieces
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 teaspoon paprika (sweet smoked I like)
-1 teaspoon ground black pepper
-1 teaspoon of sea salt (more or less to taste)
-4 cloves of fresh garlic mashed to a paste (more to taste)
Ingredients for Sauce:
-1 small green bell pepper finely minced
-1 small red bell pepper finely minced
-1 medium onion cut into thin rings
-5-6 cloves garlic mashed to a paste (garlic press or mortar and pestle)
-1 cup crushed tomatoes
-1 cup tomato sauce
-1/2 cup dry white wine
-1 cup water
-2 bay leaves
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
-sea salt to taste

Ingredients for "bed":
-2 large Boniatos (white sweet potatoes) or in it's place substitute it for 4 potatoes (boiled, peeled, cut into thin rounds)
Directions:
(1)In a mortar mash garlic to a paste with sea salt, cumin, paprika, and pepper. Rub it all over the fish filets.

(2)Heat some olive oil on medium high in a pan, brown the salmon filets on both sides. Set aside.

(3)In the same pan let's start making the sauce, sautee onions and minced bell peppers for 5 minutes, add garlic sautee another 2 minutes, add cumin, oregano, bay leaf sautee 1 minute, now add crushed tomato, stir until it mixes well and higher heat, now add tomato sauce, stir and bring to boil, add 1 cup water, and 1/2 cup dry white wine, sea salt to taste bring to a boil and and simmer on medium low for atleast 10 minutes.

(4)Add salmon filets in carefully along with drippings, in a big dish make a bed with peeled sliced into thin rounds potatoes or boniatos and carefully place the salmon filets in the sauce over this bed with the rest of the sauce.

(5)Served it with rice and a wonderful salad my mom made marinaded in white wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic and salt. (It was delicious it has orange cauliflower, broccoflower, red onion, aspuragus, and minced cilantro)

"Mamey" (aka Omar) served it with "Harina de Maiz" (Polenta I'm assuming it was simply cornmeal, salted, and boiled with water but even though it sounds simple it goes well with most stuff atleast these types of food, I would've made it but I was tired and had leftover cold rice which I decided to make a "Garlic Fried Rice" with which was simply rice sauteed with minced garlic and salt I learned it from a Filipino friend, simple and delicious), and a watercress, tomato, avocado salad (I think)

NOTE:
-You can skip the whole "bed of potatoes" and or "boniato" and simply throw the over the salmon and sauce. Or you can while making the sauce when you cover it to boil let it cook 15- 20 minutes with chunks of potatoes or boniato and then when done you add the salmon in for a more "home-style" approach I guess.

-Some other time I will show my families way of preparing the "Bacalao" (salted dry cod) with this sauce.

-Don't worry if you don't have sea salt just use regular salt it will still be good.

Frituritas de Camote (Sweet Potato Fritters)

This is not a traditional "Cuban" recipe, but my grandmother makes these beautiful tasty sinful fritters made of "Sweet Potato" I think this would make a nice addition to a "Thanksgiving" meal here in America (or Canada)

Main Ingredients:
-3 medium fat sweet potatoes
-2 large eggs
-1/2 cup white flour
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-sugar to taste (also optional but see note below)
-1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (optional)
-oil to deep fry
Directions:
(1)Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees, get sweet potatoes and lightly rub them with oil, put in a baking dish uncovered to bake about 40 minutes- 1 hour.

(2)Let cool, peel and mash to a paste (don't be picky just mash it it doesn't have to be super smooth or anything)


(3)Add beaten eggs, flour, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar to taste. Mix batter it should be a thick batter than you can scoop and it can sorta hold it shape like "gloppy"

(4)Let batter rest for 1 hour. Now heat oil on medium high heat enough to pan-fry/ deep-fry. When ready drop the batter by the spoonfuls and and brown on each side, set aside on a plate with paper towels.


NOTE!:
If you wish you can skip the cinnamon and sugar BUT you will need to make a heavy syrup to drizzle over the fritters when they are done. My grandmother for this makes a syrup with equal dark brown sugar to water with 1 cinnamon stick to flavor it. She brings it to a boil, when it reaches desired consistency it's ready to use.

ALSO do not try to steam or boil it to make the batter, it will make the batter to loose and watery, the reason the sweet potatoes are baked uncovered is so that they release a lot of their liquid and are nice and starchy for the batter.

LASTLY VERY IMPORTANT don't try to be healthy and make these " sugar free" or any of that may I say "crap" or they'll taste NASTY, if you wanna do that just steam, bake, or boil the sweet potato and eat it by itself :)