DELICIOUS REASONS WHY PLANTAIN IS A CULINARY BREAKTHROUGH

With an appealing physical outlook and delicious taste, plantain has over the years stood out as a diverse food to savor with every taste. This food has been coming to the culinary rescue of many Nigerians for a long time.

Jumia Travel shares 6 of the diverse ways plantain can be cooked into enviable mouth-watering Nigerian dishes.

PLANTAIN PORRIDGE

It’s a rich, delicious and very easy meal to prepare. It is prepared with unripe or ripe plantain, but you can combine both ripe and unripe plantain to achieve a faint sugary taste. The meal consists mainly of palm oil (not too much but just enough to color the meal), fish (dried, fresh or smoked), ground crayfish and meat or peppered snail to serve.

You can choose to add vegetables, as much as you want. Fluted pumpkins (Ugwu) or spinach is a good choice.

GIZZDODO (GIZZARD AND PLANTAINS)

If you were not a plantain lover before tasting  this meal, you will definitely fall head over heels with plantain after it.

Gizzdodo is an inviting combination of plantain and gizzard in sauce. It’s an easy dish to prepare and can be served as a side dish to rice dishes like fried rice, jollof rice, coconut rice and white rice. It can also be eaten as a meal. It is mainly prepared with ripe plantains, chicken or turkey gizzard, vegetable oil, seasoning and grounded red pepper (tatashe), bonnet/habanero (rodo) and fresh tomatoes (these form the sauce the plantain and gizzard will be mixed and cooked in).

A variation of this meal for fish lovers is using fish (fresh, dried or smoked) in place of or alongside gizzard.

BOILED/FRIED/ROASTED PLANTAIN

Plantains can be boiled, fried or roasted (boli or bole) and eaten alongside fried eggs, sauce, rice (fried, jollof, coconut or white rice), Ewa Agoyin, beans or beans porridge. Either way, it’ll leave your taste buds reeling from the delectable taste. Roasted plantains can be prepared at home in an oven or open grill.

BEANS AND PLANTAIN PORRIDGE

This meal is as easy as adding plantains to the normal beans dish we prepare with palm oil and dry pepper. It’s a tasty and palatable dish prepared with ripe plantains and beans. It’s a popular dish and one of the best dishes to use to get your children to eat beans. The ripe plantains give the meal a sweet taste. Chopped fluted pumpkin leaves (ugwu) can also be added to finish the meal; you can top the meal with tomato stew or serve as is. The meal can be eaten with bread or rice.

PLANTAIN MOSA

The plantain mosa and plantain moin and moin are two dishes born out of the need to avoid wasting over-ripe plantains. They are both very worthwhile alternatives to throwing out over-ripe plantains.

Plantain mosa have been quite popular in the small chops section of parties and have a sweet taste similar to that of puff puff, but with a plantain flavor. It is prepared by blending diced over-ripe plantains, bonnet pepper, baker’s yeast and warm water together, then adding all-purpose flour and salt to the batter to blend for a second time until the mixture is thick (but not too thick). The mixture is left to rise and froth, then beaten once more before being scooped with a teaspoon and deep fried in cooking vegetable oil till it’s golden brown. It’s quite an easy meal to prepare.

PLANTAIN MOIN MOIN (UKPO OGEDE)

Plantain moin moin is similar to the plantain mosa in preparation, but rather than frying the over-ripe plantain mixture, the mixture is steamed. Fish or fresh prawns can be mixed in with the blended mixture, alongside vegetable oil or palm oil. It is then contained in a foil, moin moin leaf or nylon, and cooked in a pot of water or in a steamer until it solidifies.

The meal is usually eaten as a snack or as a meal with custard, pap, oat meal or rice.