As expected, mofongo wasn’t hard to find. While walking along the food stalls and bars at Loquito Beach, I saw it on several menus, and even the fancy resort I stayed at offered it as local cuisine.
Mofongo, a garlicky mash of fried green plantains often mixed with chicharrones (fried pork skins), is an island staple. While arroz con gandules—rice with pigeon peas—is often considered the national dish, mofongo is also dear to Puerto Ricans’ hearts, a true comfort food that reflects the combination of cultures at the heart of the island.
The dish has quite a history. When Spanish colonizers arrived from Europe in the early 1500s, they brought enslaved West Africans with them. From Africa in turn came the dish fufu, made by boiling starchy root vegetables such as yuca (cassava), pounding them out, and rolling the mashed material into balls to be eaten alongside meat or with stews. The Taino people, the island’s original occupants, used a “pilón”—their own form of a mortar and pestle—to mash foods. Europe had used garlic since the Middle Ages, and that too arrived in the Caribbean with the Spanish.
From Home Cooking to Resort Dining
Puerto Rican chef Luis Quezada, who grew up in a Humboldt Park neighborhood known as Paseo Boricua on the south side of Chicago, says mofongo was a dish “we used to eat all of the time.”“You can smell the flavors of the mofongo, the chicharrón cooking,” he said of the neighborhood.
Quezada had his first mofongo at the home of a friend’s grandmother—“Dona Pame,” as he recalled her, short for “Pamela”—and ate it in a restaurant for the first time at a place called La Bruquena in the same area.
“It was a lot more special at my friend’s home, for sure,” he said, noting also that the restaurant still exists. “It’s probably the most popular Puerto Rican restaurant in the city.”
Quezada attended culinary school in Las Vegas before taking work at the Bellagio and Caesars Palace, then moving on to the Hilton and Marriott. He brought his family to Puerto Rico to make a home for them, and now works as a chef at the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve on the island’s northeast coast. Mofongo, naturally, is on the menu.
“The dish is traditionally served as an entrée, [made with] an inexpensive and abundant ingredient, but it can function as a side dish these days,” Quezada said. Sometimes it appears as mofongo relleno—stuffed or filled mofongo, with stewed meat or seafood placed on top or in a depression in the middle. This lands squarely in entrée territory. Nevertheless, mofongo can be served “anytime,” Quezada said, ”from breakfast to late-night munchies.”
The recipe is simple, but it’s not without challenges.
“It’s a little hard to work with green plantains because they’re really hard,” Quezada said. A green plantain is very attached to its skin. If you’ve ever tried to peel a banana too early, you have an idea of how uncooperative the fruit is. But the thicker, tougher skin of the plantain makes it even more difficult, and bits of it often remain attached to the flesh.
Boiling plantains is one way to make them easy to mash (see mangú in the DR). But Puerto Ricans fry them, so the result is both mashable and browned, with a crispy texture. As mentioned, chicharrones, pieces of fried pork skin, are often worked into the mash as well. Mofongo bears some resemblance to mashed potatoes, but the frying element is different and the final consistency is chunky rather than smooth.
“You won’t eat this dish on a daily basis,” said Quezada. “It can be a bit heavy. But it’s very traditional.” And very delicious.
How to Peel a Plantain
First, cut off both ends of the plantain. Then score the skin along its length, from one end to the other, trying to get the tip of your blade through the skin but not deep into the flesh. Repeat this in two more places around the circumference, then peel.Mofongo
Serves 4- 4 green plantains
- Vegetable oil for frying the plantains
- 4 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
- 8 tablespoons butter
- 4 ounces vegetable stock
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 16 pieces chicharrónes (fried pork skin)
- Salt to taste
Pour a few inches of oil into a pan (enough to cover the plantain pieces, or you’ll have to flip them as they cook), and heat to 350 degrees F.
Fry the plantain pieces in batches—do not overcrowd them—until golden brown. Transfer to napkin-lined plate to drain the oil.
Put the fried plantains, cilantro, butter, and vegetable stock in a pilón (a medium-to-large mortar and pestle) and mash them until soft. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, use whatever trick you have for mashing potatoes: a fork in a bowl, a masher, etc. It may turn out a bit lumpy, but that’s what you’re looking for here.
Mix the garlic and, if using, the chicharrón into the mash. Salt to taste.
For each serving, create a ball of the mash. Serve with a cup of caldo (plain chicken broth) on the side, stewed meat (such as pork or chicken), or camarones guisados (a tomato-based stewed shrimp dish).
