Vegan Mofo #13 - Taymer’s Plantain Balls...

Vegan Mofo #13 - Taymer’s Plantain Balls 

The Region - The Caribbean
The Book - Caribbean Vegan
The Author - Taymer Mason
The Recipe - Plantain Balls
Page # 64
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - About 35 minutes

We’re kind of going backwards today, I started with a Caribbean dessert earlier this afternoon and now I’m brining you a Caribbean appetizer. This recipe comes once again from Taymer Mason and her lovely book Caribbean Vegan, and it pretty much caught my attention from the get-go. I mean plantains mashed up with vegan ham rolled into balls and breaded? Yum!  I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I mean I really, really love plantains

Despite loving plantains I have to admit I’m usually pretty uncreative when it comes to cooking them. I pan fry them or deep fry them and that’s about it. In this recipe the plantains are mashed with cinnamon, cayenne, and minced up vegan ham. Then you take tablespoon sized blobs, and roll them into a mixture of salt, breadcrumbs, smoked paprika, nutritional yeast and wheat germ. Then you bake them in the oven for 25 minutes. They’re a little mushy though so it can be hard to roll them into a proper ball. The best thing to do is scoop some up and plop it down in the breading and then roll it around in there until it forms a ball shape. It actually works out better then you might think.

Unlike a lot of other ball recipes these come together in a snap thanks to their not being very many ingredients, and they cook quickly too. However I think their best feature is their unique flavor, and their subtle blend of sweet and savory. Definitely a nice appetizer.

Lastly Taymer recommends serving them with Caribbean pickle which is a mixture of habanero pepper, onion, cucumber, lime juice and herbs, but I didn’t have any cucumbers and so instead I just made a spicy style Thousand Island dressing to dip them in. This worked out really great though I’m sure the Caribbean pickle would have been even better. Next time I suppose.