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Dessert

Fried Plantains

Fried plantains coated in flour and egg, then fried and sprinkled with crushed crystallized sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Plantains

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the plantains in half lengthwise.

  2. Brush the cut sides with the egg yolk.

  3. Dredge the plantains in flour.

Fry and finish

  1. Fry them in melted butter or ghee until golden.

  2. While hot, sprinkle with crushed crystallized sugar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Very ripe plantains
Provide the main body and natural sweetness, which deepens as the fruit ripens and caramelizes in the pan.
Egg yolk
Helps the flour coating adhere and promotes even browning on the cut surfaces.
Flour
Forms a thin coating that crisps when fried and helps the golden crust form.
Melted butter or ghee
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning flavor to the surface.
Crystallized sugar
Adds a crunchy, sweet finish that melts slightly against the hot fried plantain.

The step that matters

Fry until golden. Frying over moderate heat lets the flour coating and sugars brown evenly. Too high a heat can scorch the coating before the plantain softens inside, while too low a heat leaves it greasy and pale.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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