- Hi, I'm Becky Striepe from Glue & Glitter
and today we're making plantain tacos.
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Y'all, if you have never had sweet, tender
plantains in a taco before, you are in for such a treat.
You bake the plantains up with black beans
and while you do that you pickle up some onions
and top everything off with creamy avocado
and it is just a real delight.
This recipe has three parts.
You start by getting your plantains
and black beans into the oven.
While those are baking,
you have plenty of time to pickle your onions
and slice the avocado
and by the time the plantains come out of the oven,
you're ready to put everything together and eat.
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Start by grabbing yourself a ripe plantain.
If you've never worked with plantains before don't worry,
it's very easy to choose a ripe one.
A ripe plantain basically looks like an overripe banana.
You don't want it to be green at all
and even if it's all yellow, that might be okay,
but it's even better if it's got quite a bit of brown on it.
A banana that would be ready for banana bread,
is a plantain that is perfect for this recipe.
Start by grabbing yourself a large, ripe plantain
and removing the peel.
I like to do this by slicing off one end
and then slicing it down the middle
so that you can remove the peel easily.
It's not gonna appeal like a banana
where you crack one end and then peel everything off.
Slice your plantain up at an angle.
Slicing at an angle creates more surface area
and that will help your plantains
brown better in the oven.
Then you'll add some olive oil, red wine vinegar,
coriander and salt and then a drained can of black beans.
Then stir it up really well so the plantains and beans
get really well coated in all of those seasonings.
Pour that out onto a lined baking sheet
and you'll wanna spread this out
so that the plantains are in a single layer.
So you might need to get in there with the spoon
and just kind of push things around.
You want your plantains,
the tops of them to be exposed to the heat.
Place that pan in the oven for eight minutes
and then pull it out and flip just the plantains over.
You can give those beans a stir
so they'll cook evenly if you want,
but it's not a big deal if you don't.
Once you've flipped your plantains,
put the pan back in the oven for eight to 12 more minutes.
You're basically looking for them
to be nice and Brown on the top,
so it really depends on your oven
and how thickly you slice the plantains
and how ripe your plantains are,
how long it's gonna take to cook.
So just keep an eye on it for that last few minutes.
While the plantains are cooking,
it's time to pickle those onions.
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You can use red onions like I am or white onions,
it doesn't matter.
The first thing you wanna do is thinly slice those onions
into a half moon shape.
My onion was kind of a weird shape
where it's flat on the bottom, it just came that way.
So I sliced it into rounds and then into half moons,
but if you want, you can slice it in half
and just do the half moons that way, it's totally up you.
Once you're done slicing, separate your onion pieces
and then stick them into a pint jar.
It's fine if you have to kind of stuff them in there,
but usually a medium sized onion is gonna be about two cups,
which will fit nicely and comfortably into a pint jar.
Now set that aside and it's time to make the brine.
If you've never made pickles before, don't worry.
Brine is just a fancy word for hot vinegar mixture
and it's what gives pickles their flavor
and it's what gives them that longevity.
The acid from the vinegar and the salt that you put in there
is what makes pickles last longer
than vegetables that aren't pickled.
To make this brine,
add your vinegar and water to a sauce pan
and then add sugar and salt.
And then give that a stir
until all of the solids in the pan dissolve.
At that point you don't have to stir anymore,
but you do wanna bring the mixture to a boil.
As soon as it hits a boil,
turn off the heat and remove the pan from the heat,
and then you wanna pour that hot brine over the onions.
That's gonna cook the onions just a little bit
so that they soften and it's gonna help them soak in
that brine more quickly.
That's it for the pickles, they're done.
You can set them aside on the counter until the jar is cool
and then stick it in the fridge if you want
until your plantains are done cooking.
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Once the oven timer goes off, you are ready to serve,
so pull the bean plantain mixture out of the oven
and divide it between your tortillas.
Top that off with some of those pickled onions.
Then add some of that creamy avocado
and you're ready to eat.
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I hope that this video has answered all of your questions
about how to make plantain tacos.
If you have any questions that I didn't address
about the recipe, feel free to drop them below,
I'm always happy to help.
And don't forget to rate and subscribe.
Happy cooking.
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