HOW TO BOIL RIPE PLANTAINS

Here is how to boil ripe plantain.  We boil ripe plantains in my house mostly because the kids love it. When I wean babies from breast milk, I serve them boiled ripe plantains too. Boiled mashed and served the babies with pepperless sauce or stew. Ripe plantains are mostly cooked by frying dodo because that’s what most Nigerians know.

Other methods like baking, pounding, plantain porridge and roasting are not as popular as fried plantain dodo though.

People from South South Nigeria know very well  how and it’s easy. Boiling ripe plantains is easier than making fried plantains. If you can’t stand sweet foods, then boiled ripe plantains are not for you. If you love sweet potatoes, then you’ll enjoy boiled ripe plantains. I love my ripe plantains served cold because then they are hardened and formed a good texture.

Why we let our salted water begin to boil before adding ripe plantains is to give the cooked plantains a texture that feels well cooked but not mushy. Ripe plantains are already soft so, it won’t be best to add to cold water and start waiting. Between when it waits in the water and when the pot begins to boil, they may get softer and not too pleasant.

Salting the water also helps to give very tasty cooked plantains that are ripe but not soft and mushy.

There are two methods of boiling ripe plantains…

• Boiling plantains with the skin
• peeling off plantain skin before boiling.

HOW TO BOIL RIPE PLANTAINS:

1. Wash the plantains in clean water.
2. Cut through the skin with a knife, drop the knife and peel off the soft skin easily with your fingers. If they don’t come off easily, you can peel off using a knife.
3. Cut and gently drop in salted boiling water. Salt water just sparingly not too much salt.
4. Let it boil for about five minutes before you check with a skewer or fork.
5. Depending on how cooked you want the plantains, once the fork can go through easily, your ripe plantains are done. You can leave to boil a bit more if you like them softer.
6. Remove from heat, drain boiled plantains and serve with egg sauce. Serve boiled plantains with tomato stew, vegetable stew, or pepper sauce.
7. Enjoy with friends and family.

 

 BOIL  WITH SKIN INTACT

Ripe plantains can be boiled with the skin intact. However, you have to peel off the skin from cooked plantains before serving.

Just follow these few steps:

1. Wash plantains and place in a pot.
2. Pour in already boiling water
3. Sprinkle some salt and put the lid on the pot to boil. After about five minutes, check with a toothpick or fork for doneness. If it pierces right through easily, then the boiled plantain is cooked if there is still a little resistance, leave to boil some more before checking again to see if they are cooked.
4. Drain the hot water, let hot plantains cool a little bit. Peel off the the skin and serve.

This can be mashed and fed to your 6 month old baby.

Here is a video of me boiling plantains. Watch here or watch my plantain boiling video on YouTube and subscribe to updates.

 

 

Because unripe plantains are very delicious,  highly nutritious and great for weight loss, we cook them too in my kitchen.

 

HOW TO MAKE BOILED UNRIPE PLANTAIN FOR BABIES

1. The way that I feed boiled unripe plantains to my babies is by boiling the plantains very soft
2. Next I mash the hot boiled plantains with some palm oil. This way the baby is fed with fingers and they love it.
3. Do not try to mash cold boiled plantain because it won’t be easy to get that smoothness that babies can easily digest.
4. The taste of raw palm oil in mashed boiled plantains is amazing and my kids love it. Just the same way I mash hot boiled yam with palm oil for babies. It’s very filling and keeps the babies full for some time.

 

 

HOW TO BOIL UNRIPE PLANTAINS

Unripe plantains are green plantains still Unripe. For green plantains to turn ripe,  they have to be mature before harvesting.  If unripe plantains are harvested premature,  they take longer to get ripe.

For me, the method I use to boil ripe plantains is easy.

I cook unripe plantains a lot. In this video is me showing how to cook plantains using the boiling method which is actually the simplest method of cooking plantains.

All the ingredients needed to boil plantains are:
Plantains
Water
Salt to taste.

Boiled plantains cook in 10 minutes or less. Sometimes more depending on how soft you want them to cook.

In the video I posted above, that’s me making boiled plantains and serving with stew.

It is a short plantain boiling video. Watch on YouTube and subscribe for more content.  Or, you can watch the one posted above.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ON BOILED PLANTAINS (FAQ)

1. How long can I boil plantains?  ANSWER: My timing for boiled plantains is 10 minutes. I add my plantains to already boiling water on the stove. As soon as the plantaimns are added to boiling water, I wait 10 minutes and turn off the heat. They are ready. When I boil plantains for kids, I let them boil longer so they cook softer. Basically, Plantains cook in 10 minutes.
2. Is plantain good for weight loss? ANSWER: Unripe plantains are excellent for weight loss.
3. What can I eat with boiled plantain? ANSWER: I serve my boiled plantains with the following:

• stews
• egg sauce
• beans porridge
• green vegetable sauce and even curry.

 

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