Mofongo Is The Puerto Rican Comfort Food You Should Be Making

Delish

Understated and ridiculously comforting, mofongo is a delicious Puerto Rican dish that's worth getting to know.

Transcript

00:00 Hey y'all, it's Brooke in the Delish Kitchen studios,

00:02 making a dish that's very near and dear to my heart.

00:05 It's the Caribbean staple, mofongo.

00:07 I could eat mofongo year round.

00:09 Good mofongo is only a few ingredients.

00:11 You've got some green plantain,

00:12 a little bit of garlic,

00:13 and some ground up fried pork rinds or chicharron.

00:17 It's a dish that has Caribbean roots,

00:19 hailing from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

00:21 So you already know it's gonna be good.

00:23 One that we're making is super simple

00:28 with just the pork chicharron as the add-in.

00:30 But if you're making this at home, you can go crazy.

00:33 My favorite version has pernil, which has roast pork in it.

00:36 I've seen shrimp mofongo, chicken mofongo,

00:39 veggie mofongo, all kinds.

00:41 The first step to preparing the plantain for your mofongo

00:44 is to peel the plantain.

00:46 Sometimes the peel can be a little bit stiff,

00:48 so if you need to grab a paring knife to help you,

00:50 that's perfectly okay.

00:52 We're gonna cut this into 3/4 inch to one inch size pieces.

00:56 Then you'll be all set to fry the plantain.

00:59 Get a big skillet, fill it with oil,

01:01 and heat it to about 375.

01:03 Since plantain is honestly on the blander side,

01:08 you're gonna need to pack a lot of flavor

01:09 into the things that you add to it.

01:11 That's where this garlic comes in.

01:13 Instead of leaving it whole or slicing it,

01:15 we're gonna grate it into really small pieces

01:17 so that it can incorporate with all of that plantain

01:20 and provide a really pungent, garlicky flavor.

01:22 To do that, we're gonna take two large garlic cloves.

01:25 We're gonna get a microplane and just grate them down

01:27 until we have enough garlic

01:29 to make this thing taste really good.

01:31 The other thing that's gonna give our mofongo

01:33 all of its flavor is fried pork skin

01:36 or chicharron or pork rinds.

01:38 This is something you can absolutely find

01:40 in the snack aisle in your grocery store.

01:42 That's what we did.

01:43 Or if you're feeling really ambitious,

01:44 you can make chicharron at home

01:46 by deep frying some pork skin

01:49 until it gets nice and crispy and golden brown.

01:51 Then you just let it dry out,

01:52 and you'll have essentially exactly

01:54 what we have in these bags.

01:55 To get this into the mofongo,

01:57 we're going to crush these

01:58 into really, really fine, small pieces

02:00 so that it can distribute evenly

02:02 throughout the mofongo mix

02:03 and just flavor every single bite

02:05 with porky, salty goodness.

02:07 I've got my pork rinds all crumbled up.

02:09 My hands are nice and exfoliated now

02:11 from the little sharp porky bits.

02:14 There's still a couple big, chunky pieces in there.

02:16 It's not all completely like fine dust,

02:19 but I think that's good

02:20 'cause you're gonna want some of that

02:21 crunchy, porky texture

02:23 when you're biting into the mofongo.

02:24 Now that we've got our plantain all sliced up,

02:27 it's time to give them a good fry.

02:28 When I'm frying plantain,

02:29 or anything really,

02:31 and it's not a deep frying kind of situation,

02:34 I like to use a cast iron skillet

02:36 because cast iron holds heat really well,

02:39 and your temperature won't be fluctuating

02:40 all crazy when you add stuff in.

02:42 It'll definitely still fluctuate,

02:43 but cast iron, you're more likely to stay

02:46 somewhere in the temperature range that you want.

02:48 We're gonna add two cups of oil to the pan.

02:51 Heat that over medium-high heat to 375 degrees,

02:54 and then we'll be ready to fry our plantain.

02:56 To cook these green plantains,

02:57 we're gonna technically do what's called a shallow fry.

03:00 We don't have a ton of oil in here,

03:01 so something like this deep fry thermometer

03:03 probably isn't gonna get the job done

03:05 'cause it's not gonna go far enough into the pan

03:07 to really give us an accurate reading.

03:09 So for things like this,

03:11 eyeball it after you've done it for long enough,

03:13 but if you're still a newbie for this kind of thing,

03:15 or it's your first or second time,

03:16 use a probe thermometer.

03:17 Definitely hold it to the side

03:19 so that you're not making direct contact

03:21 with the bottom of the pan,

03:22 but this should give you a good ballpark reading

03:26 of how hot you want your oil to be,

03:27 which in this case is 375.

03:29 My oil's nice and hot.

03:30 I'm gonna go ahead and start adding my plantains in.

03:32 They're gonna take about six to eight minutes

03:34 to fry all the way through,

03:36 and you wanna make sure you flip them halfway through

03:38 so that the whole entire piece

03:39 gets nice and golden brown and even.

03:41 We're gonna work really quickly here.

03:42 So these plantain have about a minute left in the oil.

03:46 As soon as they're done,

03:46 I'm gonna use a spider to take them out

03:48 and drain them on these paper towels.

03:50 The key to good mofongo is mashing the plantain

03:53 while it's still hot and mashing it in batches.

03:56 Mashing it in batches will make sure

03:58 that we get everything evenly distributed throughout.

04:00 So we're gonna mash half of this

04:01 with the chicharron and the garlic.

04:03 Then we're gonna add the other half of the plantain,

04:05 the other half of the chicharron.

04:07 Keep mashing until it's all homogenous.

04:09 If your mofongo is a little bit dry

04:11 and won't hold together

04:13 when you press it with your two fingers,

04:15 you can add a little bit of beef broth

04:16 to start loosening up the mixture

04:18 until you get to the consistency that you want.

04:20 This mofongo is darn near ready.

04:23 I'm gonna taste it really quick

04:24 just to make sure it's seasoned enough.

04:26 I'm gonna give it a little tiny bite.

04:28 I don't think it needs much help.

04:31 I'm gonna do like maybe two more pinches of salt.

04:35 That's pretty much it.

04:35 That's mofongo.

04:37 The last part of making this dish

04:39 is getting it into that quintessential mofongo shape,

04:42 which if you haven't noticed,

04:44 it's just an upside down ramekin.

04:46 This one is about six ounces.

04:48 I'm gonna spray a tiny bit of Pam in the ramekin.

04:50 Not too much.

04:51 I don't wanna interrupt the flavor

04:52 of what we got going on here.

04:53 So I'm gonna load it with the mofongo,

04:55 gently tap it and slide the ramekin off.

04:59 And we'll be left with that lovely little dome shape

05:01 that we're all familiar with for mofongo.

05:03 This is everything that I want

05:04 at the end of a really long, hard day.

05:07 I have a couple of accoutrements around the side.

05:09 I've got some lime wedges.

05:11 I've got some of that beef broth

05:12 that I used to bring the mofongo together.

05:14 And I also have a little bit of tomato sauce.

05:16 That's my personal favorite way to eat mofongo.

05:18 So I just seasoned a little bit up

05:20 and I like to dip my mofongo in that

05:23 or just pour it straight on top.

05:24 My heart is full.

05:28 Mofongo just does it for me every time.

05:31 It's so salty.

05:33 It's so got a little crispy crunchies in there.

05:35 And honestly, this is the best I think plantain can be.

05:38 Of course you got your sweet plantain

05:40 that you can fry up and it's so delicious.

05:42 But this really speaks volumes

05:44 for the value of a good green plantain.

05:47 The plantain is neutral enough

05:48 that it really carries all that garlic through.

05:50 'Cause remember we didn't really cook the garlic.

05:51 It just kind of went in raw.

05:52 So you get a little bit of that raw garlic flavor.

05:55 Honestly, the beef broth and the tomato sauce are so crucial

05:58 'cause it'll soften this right up.

06:00 And if you have any little dry pockets,

06:02 these will make it way easier and more enjoyable to eat.

06:05 So if you're looking for more delicious, salty,

06:09 porky, easy Caribbean recipes just like this one,

06:14 keep it right here at delish.com.

06:16 (upbeat music)

06:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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