Plantains Every Which Way

When developing a new menu item, often the process begins with a single ingredient. When looking for a new duck set, I started with Tamarind. The tart tropical pulp seems ready made for duck. With a background of Lime instead of the traditional orange, the dish was taking on a South American feel. When it came to the starch I decided that plantains or sweet potatoes would be the logical extension of this idea. I have not done much with plantains besides making plantain chips. It turns out that none of us in the kitchen had much experience with this cousin of the banana. What a perfect opportunity to buy 48 pounds of plantains and start learning what this fruit can do.
The first step was deciding what was the best way to cook the Plantain. The methods I tried were: peeled and roasted, roasted in the peel, peeled and grilled, grilled in the skin and peeled and boiled. It was amazing how different the results were. Without a doubt the best results came from boiling but created a moist product that might not be the best for forming into a patty, which is tentatively what I am thinking of doing with it. The plantain that was grilled in the peel was second best. I grilled it until juices began oozing out of the end of the peel. When cooked nicely, the peel is all black and the inside turns from an off white to an odd yellow.
I made some simple Tostones style patties with the cooked plantains by mixing them with some South American spices and lime juice. I ate a lot of plantains yesterday mostly because I found the exotic quality of the flavor to be so enticing that I was having fun pairing it with other flavors. The avocado dressing I have with the dungeness crab salad was a winning combo. Unfortunately I am still waiting for my tamarind to arrive so the project will be an hold for a couple of days. In the meantime Jeff came up with a fresh sea scallop special using the plantains. Fresh sea scallops are a rare sight in this area and if you have not had one you should because the natural sweetness of a never frozen scallop is one of my favorite seafood experiences.