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Upside-Down Plantain Omelet With Scotch Bonnet Salsa

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An omelet made with plantains being served with salsa and lime wedges.
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Drew Aichele

My mother, a Brazilian who grew up in Cuba, is obsessed with plantains. She eats them alongside pretty much every meal and brought my sister and me up in the same way, so now my fruit bowl is almost never without a couple of blackening plantains. There is a plantain recipe for every stage of ripeness, from hard and green to soft and black. This recipe calls for plantains that are ripe and sweet, preferably nearly all black, with only some canary yellow marks. In truth, I’ll only ever cook plantains at this stage of ripeness. Unripe/green plantains are no substitute here because you won’t get that sweet, caramelized layer we’re looking for.

This recipe was excerpted from ‘Mezcla’ by Ixta Belfrage. Buy the full book on Amazon. This book was selected as one of the best cookbooks of 2022.

Cook's note:

You’ll only use ½ cup of coconut milk, but take all the contents out of the can and whisk well to combine the solid and the liquid before measuring out what’s needed.

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