Mofongo

Name: Mofongo
Yield: Serves 6 to 8
Cuisine: Americas
Ingredients: 4 green plantains, peeled, cut on a bias in ½-inch slices, and soaked in cold water for 1 hour; 4 green plantains, peeled, cut on a bias in ½-inch slices, and soaked in cold water for 1 hour; Salt; ½ pound pork rind, cut into 2-inch squares and soaked in cold water for 2 hours; Lard; ½ pound pork rind, cut into 2-inch squares and soaked in cold water for 2 hours; ½ pound pork rind, cut into 2-inch squares and soaked in cold water for 2 hours

Preparation info

Serves
6 to 8

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Canon of Vegetables

By Raymond Sokolov

Published 2007

About

Afro-Caribbean food reaches its starchy apex with this spherical trademark dish. Mofongo is the Puerto Rican answer to Chinese pork buns. The soaking leaches out a naturally occurring bitter latex from the plantain pulp.

Ingredients

Lard
½ pound pork rind, cut into 2-inch squares and soaked in cold water for 2 h

Americas
Side dish
Gluten-free
Puerto Rico
Caribbean

Method

Melt the lard in a heavy pot. Set the pork rind squares in the lard, fat side down. Cover and cook over low heat until tender, about 15 minutes. Remove the cover, raise the heat to medium, and fry another 15 minutes, or until crisp and brown. Drain off the excess fat. Sprinkle with salted water to make the cracklings (chicharrones) puff up.
While the chi