Mariquitas con Mojo (Plantain Chips with Garlic Mojo)
Long, paper-thin green plantain chips, fried crisp and served with a garlicky sour orange mojo.
Recipe in testing: I'm cooking it in my TM7™ and will update the steps and the photo with my own.
Mariquitas are the crunchy Cuban plantain chips that come to the table in a tall pile with a little bowl of mojo on the side: green plantains sliced lengthwise into long, thin strips, fried until golden and salted while hot. Each chip gets dipped or drizzled with garlic, olive oil and sour orange, and the pile disappears before you know it.
The Thermomix® TM7™ makes the mojo: it chops the garlic, warms it gently in olive oil so it softens without browning and mixes in the sour orange juice, cumin and oregano. The plantains are sliced with a mandoline and fried in batches on the stove, so everything is ready in about 40 minutes.
Made in the Thermomix® TM7™
Mariquitas con Mojo (Plantain Chips with Garlic Mojo)
Makes: About 6 cups of chips and 1 cup of mojo
- Prep20 min
- Cook20 min
- Total40 min
- Serves6
Ingredients
For the mojo
For the mariquitas
Instructions
- Place the parsley in the mixing bowl, chop 3 sec/speed 7 and set it aside.
- Place the garlic and salt in the mixing bowl and chop 3 sec/speed 5, leaving small pieces. Add the olive oil and cook 4 min/100°C (212°F)/speed 1, so the garlic softens without browning.
- Add the sour orange juice, cumin and oregano and mix 5 sec/speed 2. Pour the mojo into a small bowl, stir in the parsley and let it cool.
- Cut the ends off the plantains, slit the skin lengthwise in a few places and peel it off. Soak the peeled plantains in cold salted water for 10 minutes so they do not darken, then pat them dry.
- Using a mandoline with its hand guard, slice the plantains lengthwise into long strips about 1.5 mm (1/16 in) thick.
- Heat 4 cm (1 1/2 in) of oil in a deep skillet or pot on the stove to 175°C (350°F). Fry the strips in batches, without crowding, for 2 to 3 minutes, until golden and crisp and the bubbling slows down.
- Drain them on paper towels, sprinkle them with salt right away and serve with the mojo for dipping or drizzling.
Tips
- Sour orange juice (naranja agria) is sold bottled in the Latin aisle. If you cannot find it, use the orange and lime juice mix.
- The thinner the slice, the crisper the chip. If they bend instead of snapping once cool, slice the next batch thinner or fry it 30 seconds longer.
- Cooled mariquitas keep 2 days in an airtight container. The mojo keeps 1 week in the fridge; the oil firms up when cold, so let it sit at room temperature before serving.
- In Puerto Rico, thin fried plantain chips like these are called platanutres.
