Dominican cuisine
Mangú
Mashed boiled green plantain with pickled onion, egg, fried cheese and salami.
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Total
- 50 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
Ingredients
- Green plantains4
- Red onions2
- Vinegar60 ml
- Butter60 g
- Salami200 g
- Frying cheese200 g
- Eggs4
- Vegetable oil60 ml
- Saltto taste
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Peel the plantains under water, halve them and boil in salted water for twenty minutes, until soft.
25 min
- 2
Set aside a cup of the cooking water and cool it.
5 min
- 3
Pickle the sliced onion in vinegar with salt and leave it fifteen minutes.
16 min
- 4
Mash the hot plantain with butter, adding the cold water, to a smooth purée.
8 min
- 5
Fry slices of salami and cheese in a dry pan until browned.
10 min
- 6
Fry the eggs and build the plate: purée, the onion and its vinegar on top, salami, cheese and egg alongside.
8 min
About the dish
The plantain is mashed hot and always with cold water from the pot. Cold water into hot mash is the only way to get it smooth; hot water makes it gluey.
The onion is pickled in vinegar and laid on top with its liquid. That acidity is a counterweight to a starchy base rather than a garnish; without it mangú sits heavy.
The full set is called "los tres golpes", the three hits: fried cheese, salami and egg. That is how it is served for breakfast across the country, and how it is ordered.
Worth knowing
- — Peel the plantains under running water: their sap leaves black marks on the hands that last for days.
- — The mashing water has to be cold. That is not superstition but starch physics: hot water turns the mash stringy.
- — Ripe plantain will not do — the result is a sweet purée. It has to be green and starchy.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 720 kcal
- Protein
- 30 g
- Fat
- 42 g
- Carbs
- 58 g
More from Dominican Republic
- Dominican sancocho — A thick soup of several meats and root vegetables. Celebration food, cooked for a crowd.
- Pollo guisado — Chicken braised in caramelised sugar with vegetables, the Dominican weekday lunch.
- Sweet cream of beans — A sweet dessert cream of red beans with coconut milk, sweet potato and biscuits.