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The Expat Kitchen: Brazilian Fried Plantains

The Expat Kitchen: Brazilian Fried Plantains

Food and Recipes

Plantains are under appreciated in most of North America.  However once you go south a ways you discover entire cultural diets which revolve around certain staples, the plantain is one of them.  From Brazil to Colombia plantains are fried, steamed, rolled and fried into chips, mashed and fried in thick patties or even ground into flour.  The uses are endless.  I claim this as the Brazilian Fried Plantain because during my travels in Brazil I first ate this dish.  The distinction is in the use of honey and cinnamon, a practice which my Colombian husband raises his eyebrows at.  This is also my personal favorite recipe for eating those almost black, overripe plantains.  Feel free to play around with this recipe.  Plantains are yummy with salt sprinkled on them, steamed with butter (another common way to eat them in the areas of Brazil I stayed) and even stuffed with cheese.

So here is the whole recipe:

Cut the bananas into slices about 1 centimeter thick.

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Fry them in butter or oil.

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Sprinkle with cinnamon and drizzle with honey.

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A great addition to any meal I ate mine with a quinoa pizza and a fried egg. Daniel loves fried plantains!

 

Warning: This recipe is extremely addictive!  The quinoa pizza will be included in a future Expat Kitchen post!

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Daniel is giving me moral support and showing off his one-handed bottle skills! He finally figured out how to hold a bottle when I bought the one with the handles on the side.

About the author

Erin Donaldson is an American writer, cultural correspondent and longtime expat who has lived in Colombia since 2013. Her work explores travel, culture, relationships, identity and the realities of building a life abroad. After nearly 14 years in Colombia, she is now spending time traveling through Mexico and writing from the perspective of someone who has lived long enough outside the United States to question many of the assumptions she once took for granted. Through Open Minded Traveler, Erin writes candidly about dating, alternative relationship structures, sexuality, cultural differences and the ways travel can challenge conventional ideas about how people are supposed to live and connect.

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