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Green bananas are unripe bananas used in cuisines worldwide. They have a firmer texture and a starchy, mildly astringent taste compared to their ripe counterparts.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2022) |
Green bananas are unripe bananas used in cuisines worldwide. They have a firmer texture and a starchy, mildly astringent taste compared to their ripe counterparts.
In East Africa, a starchy triploid banana cultivar originating from the African Great Lakes, known as "matoke," is harvested while still green and used in various dishes.
In certain Caribbean countries like Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, green bananas are called green figs. The term "green fig" is employed to distinguish unripe or green bananas from their ripe, yellow counterparts. In these regions, green figs are often featured in various dishes and are typically prepared differently than ripe bananas.
Guineos (pronounced [ɡiˈneos] ) usually refers to an unripe banana. The term guineo is sometimes used in reference to its ripened counterpart: the yellow (ripened) banana. The word guineo comes from Guinea, a country in West Africa, as it is one of the places from which bananas originate. Some make a distinction between the two and refer to green bananas as guineos verdes (green bananas) and yellow bananas as guineos (ripe bananas).
Guineos are not to be confused with plantains, which are far starchier than the guineo and cannot be used in the same ways.
Guineos are used widely in Latin American cooking as they are versatile, inexpensive, and filling.
Bananas, whether green or ripe, are called guineos in El Salvador and Honduras. Guineos are a popular fruit in the country and are used for the popular dessert 'chocobanano', which is a frozen guineo covered in chocolate, sprinkles, or other toppings.
In Puerto Rico, green bananas are used in dishes such as viandas con ajilimójili , pasteles , sopa de mondongo and sancocho . There are also many other dishes on the island which use green bananas. Green banana flour is widely available throughout Puerto Rico, used for making pancakes, crêpes, waffles, cookies, cakes, tortillas, bread, and other pastries. [1]
Cooking bananas are a group of banana cultivars in the genus Musa whose fruits are generally used in cooking. They are not eaten raw and are generally starchy. Many cooking bananas are referred to as plantains or 'green bananas'. In botanical usage, the term "plantain" is used only for true plantains, while other starchy cultivars used for cooking are called "cooking bananas". True plantains are cooking cultivars belonging to the AAB group, while cooking bananas are any cooking cultivar belonging to the AAB, AAA, ABB, or BBB groups. The currently accepted scientific name for all such cultivars in these groups is Musa × paradisiaca. Fe'i bananas from the Pacific Islands are often eaten roasted or boiled, and are thus informally referred to as "mountain plantains", but they do not belong to any of the species from which all modern banana cultivars are descended.
Puerto Rican cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes original to Puerto Rico. It has been primarily a fusion influenced by the ancestors of the Puerto Rican people: the indigenous Taínos, Spanish Criollos and sub-Saharan African slaves. As a territory of the United States, the culinary scene of Puerto Rico has also been moderately influenced by American cuisine.
Alcapurria is a popular fritter dish from Puerto Rico.
Mofongo is a dish from Puerto Rico with plantains as its main ingredient. Plantains are picked green, cut into pieces and typically fried in more modern versions but can be boiled in broth or roasted, then mashed with salt, garlic, pork, broth, and cooking oil in a wooden pilón. Cassava and sweet potato are boiled then roasted or flash-fried, plantains can also be made in this method or roasted before flash-frying. The goal is to produce a tight ball of mashed plantains that will absorb the attending condiments and have either pork cracklings (chicharrón) or bits of bacon inside. It is traditionally served with fried meat and chicken broth soup. Particular flavors result from variations that include vegetables, chicken, shrimp, beef, or octopus packed inside or around the plantain orb.
Sopa de mondongo is a soup that originally came from Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It is made from diced tripe slow-cooked with vegetables such as bell peppers, onions, carrots, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic or root vegetables. The dish is generally prepared in former Spanish colonies in Latin America, Caribbean, and in the Philippines. The proposed etymology for mondongo is in the African Kikongo language, meaning “intestines, entrails of certain animals.
Honduran cuisine is a fusion of Mesoamerican, Spanish, Caribbean and African cuisines. There are also dishes from the Garifuna people. Coconut and coconut milk are featured in both sweet and savory dishes. Regional specialties include sopa de caracol, fried fish, tamales, carne asada and baleadas. Other popular dishes include meat roasted with chismol and carne asada, chicken with rice and corn, and fried fish with pickled onions and jalapeños. In the coastal areas and the Bay Islands, seafood and some meats are prepared in many ways, including with coconut milk. Among the soups the Hondurans enjoy are bean soup, mondongo soup, seafood soups and beef soups. Generally all of these soups are mixed with plantains, yuca, and cabbage, and served with corn tortillas.
Cuchifritos or cochifritos refers to various fried foods prepared principally of pork in Spanish and Puerto Rican cuisine. In Spain, cuchifritos are a typical dish from Segovia in Castile. The dish consists of pork meat fried in olive oil and garlic and served hot. In Puerto Rico they include a variety of dishes including morcilla, rellenos de papa, and chicharron, and other parts of the pig prepared in different ways. Some cuchifritos dishes are prepared using cooking plantain as a primary ingredient. Cuchifritos vendors also typically serve juices and drinks such as passionfruit, pineapple, and coconut juice, as well as ajonjolí, a drink made from sesame seeds.
Cazuela is the common name given to a variety of dishes, especially from South America. It receives its name from the cazuela – traditionally, an often shallow pot made of unglazed earthenware used for cooking. The ingredients and preparation vary from region to region, but it is usually a mid-thick flavoured stock obtained from cooking several kinds of meats and vegetables mixed together.
Pasteles, also pastelles in the English-speaking Caribbean, are a traditional dish in several Latin American and Caribbean countries. In Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean coast of Colombia, the dish looks like a tamal. In Hawaii, they are called pateles in a phonetic rendering of the Puerto Rican pronunciation of pasteles, as discussed below.
Dominican cuisine is made up of Spanish, Indigenous Taíno, Middle Eastern, and African influences. The most recent influences in Dominican cuisine are from the British West Indies and China.
Fried plantain is a dish cooked wherever plantains grow, from West Africa to East Africa as well as Central America, the tropical region of northern South America and the Caribbean countries like Haiti to Cuba and in many parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania, where fried snacks are widely popular. In Indonesia it is called gorengan. It is called dodo in Yoruba in South West Nigeria, otherwise known as simply fried plantain in other parts of Nigeria. Kelewele is a fried spicy plantain or can be fried as a side dish for Red Red and fish stew in Ghana.
Pastel is the Spanish and Portuguese word for pastry, a sugary food, and is the name given to different typical dishes of various countries where those languages are spoken. In Mexico, pastel typically means cake, as with Pastel de tres leches. However, in different Latin American countries pastel can refer to very different sugary dishes, and even to non-sugary ones as well. In some places, like Brazil, a pastel can refer to both a sugary and non-sugary food, depending on the filling used.
Javanese cuisine is the cuisine of Javanese people, a major ethnic group in Indonesia, more precisely the province of Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java.
Belizean cuisine is an amalgamation of all ethnicities in the nation of Belize and their respectively wide variety of foods. Breakfast often consists of sides of bread, flour tortillas, or fry jacks that are often homemade and eaten with various cheeses. All are often accompanied with refried beans, cheeses, and various forms of eggs, etc. Inclusive is also cereal along with milk, coffee, or tea.
A great variety of cassava-based dishes are consumed in the regions where cassava is cultivated. Manihot esculenta is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes.
Guanimes are a prepared food that can be traced back to the pre-Columbian era in Puerto Rico. Guanimas translates to corn bread By the Tainos who were native Indians from Puerto Rico. Traditionally, Guanimes are made with cornmeal, sugar, salt, all purpose flour and butter, wrapped in banana leaves. These may be served with a salt cod stew or during Easter, "holy broth".
Dumplings are a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of cooked dough, often wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes, and it may be filled with meat, fish, tofu, cheese, vegetables, or a combination. Dumplings may be prepared using a variety of cooking methods and are found in many world cuisines.
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