Kitchen Temp: When life gives you plantains, make fufu

This week’s menu planning starts not in the kitchen, but in a marketing boardroom.

Eileen Andrade has just got off a plane from Miami, where she runs her Latin/Asian restaurant Finka. Across from her is Matty Matheson, executive chef of Parts & Labour in Parkdale. They’re meeting for the first time, to plan a collaborative pop-up meal, sponsored by a multinational liquor corporation, that will run Oct. 28 and 29 at Kensington’s Cold Tea bar.

Around them sit seven marketers, plus a brand ambassador from a rum company, a pamphlet in front of everyone containing planning itineraries, media pitch calendars and project objectives: “Increase brand awareness for Bacardi Maestro,” “Drive social amplification of Bacardi Maestro” and “reach target audience of sophisticated liberation consumers, males 29 years old.”

Watching chefs in an office is like seeing dolphins in a synagogue, gasping for air while listening to gibberish.

After an hour of introductions and office-meeting-speak, during which I hear an executive explain the value of my own neighbourhood as condo-free, Walmart-free and “pretty authentic,” managing director Amanda Alvaro tells the chefs that they’re going to go across the street to another office to discuss tomorrow’s kitchen session. Matheson dismisses this, telling her they don’t need to go to another room to have another meeting to plan what they’re going to cook.

The chefs barely stifle their laughter when the advertising executives, genuinely trying to be helpful, offer to do the shopping.

At this point Matheson torpedoes the meeting and heads to the market with Andrade to shop.

The next morning in the kitchen at Matheson’s restaurant, they work quickly to produce a sample series of Cuban dishes, allowing me a few tasks, Matheson watching over my shoulder as I chop kale and slice plantains.

The plantains, both ripe and unripe, boiled and mashed with garlic, chicharon and orange juice, make fufu (mofongo in Puerto Rico or the Dominican), a starch dish to be served like rice or potatoes, with meat on top. But wow is it amazing on its own.

Neither Matheson or I have a clear concept of Cuban cuisine and it’s a fun, hands-on, mouths open education, all the dishes bursting with vibrancy and acidity.

Mostly we try to be helpful, asking questions as Andrade spins around us, marinating the pickerel, chopping boiled flank steak.

Andrade’s ceviche is more of a tiradito — a Peruvian style in which the fish is sliced and sauced just before serving — instead of cubed and marinated. Though because the pickerel (Matheson had gotten it in the market, wanting her to experience an Ontario fish) is so much tougher than something like snapper or sea bream, it’s been sitting in the puree of garlic, ginger, limejuice, white pepper, celery and aji Amarillo chili paste for a while, getting spicier than Andrade would serve at her restaurant.

“Cubans don’t eat anything spicy.”

No one here speaks Spanish. Andrade is a good sport about explaining the same dishes a thousand times. I probably keep asking about the tiradito, after the fifth time, just to hear her roll the R.

But because I do, I learn that I can find whole aji amarillo peppers in the freezer at Perola’s. Fitting that it takes someone from another country to show me new things in my own neighbourhood.

Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz

Fufu wouldn’t be a whole meal unto itself. It’s more of a side starch base to serve with meat. This version is based on watching and tasting what Eileen Andrade made in the kitchen (she plated it with some sauce spooned over from the garbanzos fritos)

2 yellow (ripe) plantains

2 green (unripe) plantains

1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 orange (for juice and zest)

1 cup (250 mL) chicharon, ground (in blender, or just crumbled by hand)

salt and white pepper to taste

Trim tips from plantains but leave skin on. In a large pot of lightly salted water, boil plantains, until soft, about 15 for ripe ones, 30 for green. Transfer and cool before peeling and cutting flesh into chunks.

In a large pan on medium heat, fry garlic in oil for 30 seconds before adding plantain. Fry for a 3-4 minutes. Mash, with orange zest, orange juice and chicharon. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.

Makes four servings