Your Tostones Are Hard in the Middle — Here Is the Move Nobody Teaches

You fried the plantain, you smashed it, you fried it again, and what came to the table was hard in the middle and leathery at the edge. Or it went soft ten minutes later. Here is the move: between the two fries, the smashed plantain goes into warm salt water for two seconds — in and out — and then back into the hot oil. The water turns to steam inside and makes it light instead of dense, and the salt seasons it from the inside, where salt sprinkled on top never reaches. I'm Rosa. I cooked for twenty-four years in a Dominican kitchen in Washington Heights. In my mother's house these were what appeared when dinner was already on the table and somebody said they were still hungry. The method, so you can keep it (4 people as a side): • 3 large plantains, truly GREEN — hard, dull skin, no yellow. Yellow means sugar, and sugar burns before the inside cooks. • Peel: cut the ends, score the skin down the ridges, lift the strips off with your thumb • Cut into rounds about 1 inch thick — thicker than feels right, because they get pressed thin • FIRST FRY: oil at about 300°F, 4 to 5 minutes, turning once. Pale gold and soft, NOT browned. • SMASH while hot to about ¼ inch — the bottom of a drinking glass, a small plate, or your palm through folded parchment. You do not need a tostonera. • THE SALT WATER: warm water with about 1 tbsp salt dissolved in it. In and out, a couple of seconds, then shake it off well. • SECOND FRY: oil at 375°F, 1½ to 2 minutes, until deep golden with shattered edges • Rack, salt while hot, serve immediately. Single layer — stacked tostones steam themselves soft. TOSTONES RELLENOS: press the hot round over the back of a small glass or into a small bowl to make a cup instead of a disc, fry the cup, then fill it — garlic shrimp (shrimp sautéed 2 to 3 minutes in butter with a lot of garlic, salt, lime, parsley), or leftover pollo guisado, or stewed beef. Careful: wet plantain spits in hot oil. It is a dip, not a soak — shake it off and lower it in away from you. Mayo-ketchup or just lime in your house? And did anybody ever teach you the salt water, or is this the first you are hearing of it? Tell me where your family is from in the DR. I read every comment. Next video: arepa dominicana — the sweet cornmeal one, not the Venezuelan arepa, and why people mix them up.