Questions on baking Tostones/Patacones

Any resources on the science behind cooking bananas such as unripe plantains? Assuming them to be a starchy ingredient I attempted to produce oven-baked "tostones" or "patacones" but to no avail. Even with recipes requiring pre-cooking or blanching, they always come out extremely hard and leathery instead of being crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside as traditionally prepared.

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Francois_346702

Hi Christopher,

I am no expert but the only time I saw those prepared they were flattened and then fried, not oven baked...

Cut the plantain in chunks of 1.5cm, flatten them by pushing a flat glass on the top of one slice, then fry.

Hope this helps

Cheers,

Christopher_Barreto_1092881

That's how it is traditionally prepared. Unfortunately, correct me if I'm wrong, but double frying seems to make this meal very caloric and somewhat messy, especially when trying to make in bulk.

For context, fries can be in the oven using starchy potatoes like russets as demonstrated in this video.

https://youtu.be/m6kcANnAJSo

I assumed the same premise would follow for unripen plantains. However, placing it in cold water and gradually increasing it to a boil causes them to barely soften within the first 15 minutes. Even after 30 minutes of boiling, some disintegrated when attempting to flatten them.

When attempting to bake them under coated oil, they seemed to dedicated and dry out much more than anticipated. Yet this doesn't happen with russets.

If their chemical composition doesn't equate to a russets, then what science explains this phenomenon?

krdeleon.peralta

I can't speak to the makeup of plantains because a quick google search turns up the same "starchier than an eating banana" level of detail. However, there are other factors that contribute to the exterior and interior texture of baked/fried starches that might be helpful to try in this application. Off the top of my head I'd advise 1) considering looking into what type of starch(es) are predominant in plantains, 2) the dimension of the tostones, and 3) the way heat is being applied traditionally vs in oven baking. Taking those points one by one:

You're correct in that plantains are high in starch but other high-starch ingredients vary greatly in the form starch takes and how that can effect the final product. For example, different forms of starch (among other things) account for the differences and applications between short grain rice, arborio rice, long grain rice, etc. Similarly, potatoes can be very broadly thought of as starchy (eg, russets) vs waxy (eg, red or yukon potatoes). Depending on what type of starch is predominant in plantains would effect the pre-cook that is essentially how you're getting the tostones to appropriate inner texture before finishing for the outer texture and browning. If a water boil is both too mild (not working after 15 minutes) and too rigorous (causing eventual dissolving), maybe a gentler method of cooking to internal doneness is required like a longer but gentler oven bake.

Second, consider the dimension of the tostones as you're cooking to this internal doneness. If water boiling results in plantains too hard to start with then eventually dissolving you might want to try smaller pieces of plantain. It's helpful to remember that the volume of three dimensional objects increases exponentially rather than linearly; the upshot of this being if you have a cube of tostone with twice the length of a side it's actually four times the volume so it's going to take much more than twice as much time for the heat to penetrate the center (at which point the outside may be deteriorating) so maybe think about making your tostone pieces smaller or have a higher surface to volume ratio (eg, use more of a disc shape). Also, it's been a while since I've had a math class so somebody please let me know the any errors or incorrect language I'm using here.

Third, consider the eventual form of heat you're using to finish the outside of the tostones. The metal of baking pan or whatever you're using in the oven likely has decent capacity and conductivity but the tostones will only be touching one side at a time to the pan and the rest is in contact with air which has a very low heat capacity compared to oil you'd normally be frying in. As such, consider pre-heating your pan if you want a really ripping hot surface for browning and maybe even flipping onto another pre-heated pan to get the other surface. As with the last segment, someone please let me know if I was misinterpreting heat capacity and conductivity.

TL;DR: Finally, maybe just try this recipe from Serious Eats which incorporates most of what's described above and more for roast potatoes. If you find your tostones are still falling apart in the water, maybe consider the earlier version of this recipe which uses acidity to help maintain the integrity of the potatoes but keep in mind that as described in the later article an acidic environment will discourage the Maillard Reaction so you very likely will have less browning.

Good luck, sorry for the essay!

Joe_1028456

That's some excellent advice on how to cook bananas. It's one of those fruits that I love using a lot. Recently I started adding more of them to my desserts. I mean, it's great to have bananas in your diet in the first place, but if you get kids in the house on dinners or celebrations on Sundays it's an easier and better way to have them eat a healthy dessert. I found more ways to create cute desserts thanks to https://chopnotch.com/, and my nieces love the looks of the cakes that I make with bananas.