Hi folks,
As simple as this recipe is, I am incredibly excited to share it with you.
You may already know that I have a slight obsession with plantain, having dedicated a whole cookbook to it and all! One of my favourite ways to enjoy it is shallow fried in sunflower oil. Mmmm. Fried plantain is truly one of those food pleasures that I cannot imagine my life without. At the same time, I am constantly looking for ways to improve the way I eat, incorporating healthier habits over time until they become second nature. Water frying my plantain is an example of one such healthy habit. Let me explain a little more...
Back in May, I led a vegan Nigerian cooking class with the social enterprise Life After Hummus. The community cooking classes advocate low-fat, low-GI recipes and so I had to adapt my recipes to fit with this. Instead of oil, ingredients are fried in water instead. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well it worked with plantain. Part of the joy of fried plantain is the golden brown exterior and soft, sweet centre. What a thrill to discover that I could achieve all this with just a bit of water!
Water frying, as the name suggests, is when you use a small amount of water instead oil in order to achieve caramelisation.
Now, I don't want you to think that I am anti-fat or that I don't think we need it in our diets. We absolutely do. But I've come to learn that some fats are better than others. That is, unrefined, whole food sources such as nuts, seeds and avocados are nutritionally more beneficial than processed, refined fats and oils. In an effort to limit the processed oils, this water frying method is golden.
Check out the video above to see the method and let me know if this is something you will be trying for yourself!
Have a great week! x
Great idea to keep on eating those delicious bananas without the guilt of the frying part! ;) Thank you!
ReplyDeleteDo these mess up your pan when you cook them? It looked like there was a lot of brown residue at the bottom when the water dried up
ReplyDeleteNo it didn’t mess it up. A bit of soaking afterwards also helps.
DeleteI’m so glad I found this recipe! This is my first time making plantains, and I follow a whole food plant-based no oil way of eating, so this is perfect!!
ReplyDeleteA dietician once told me that water could be used to fry instead of oil. I had not tried it until tonight. I saw your blog and the plantains looked great so I tried frying plantain, first with a little bit of oil and decided to continue frying most of the plantain in water and they taste delicious.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, I will definitely try it out
ReplyDeleteGreat!
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful. First time I read about ‘water frying’.
ReplyDelete