Congolese breakfast

Congolese breakfast

I've been wanting to do this post for a long time. This was the breakfast served with the tea in the video I found for my tea blog post for the countries under the name of Congo. She was having scrambled eggs with fried plantain. I've had plantain chips before and they were pretty good. Slightly sweet, and the salt complimented the flavor. I had never cooked with plantain before, so I thought I would give it a try. I read somewhere that plantains should look like really old, rotten bananas when you use them. Lots of black on the skin. Other sources talk about using green plantains as well, so I wasn't sure which way to go. As it is, I picked up one of the darker plantains at the grocery store, then took about a week or so to use it. This is what mine looked like: 

This was its good side. The other side was pretty much all black. I was kind of wondering what this would be like when I cut into it. Since you are reading this blog post, you know that it was just fine. While these look like bananas, you don't peel them like a banana. You need a knife. I cut each end off, then cut down the sides to peel it. I was afraid that the skin would be really tough, but it wasn't. The hardest thing about peeling it was that it was slimy inside. 

Check that out. It looks like a banana, and smells like a banana, but it is a lot harder than a banana - especially bananas that have turned mostly black on the outside. Then I sliced it up. In the video she shows frying the slices in about a centimeter or so of oil (a scan 1/2 inch). She did caution people to fry at a lower temperature because plantains tend to burn at higher temperatures because of their sugar content. I decided to lightly coat mine in olive oil and bake. I baked them for 15 minutes in a  degree oven (about 175 Celsius). I found that they had browned nicely on both sides when I pulled them out of the oven to flip them. 

Before baking. At this point, I was a little bit afraid that I would be essentially making a banana chip. I hate banana chips. I'm sorry to those who like them, but greasy, hard dry bananas do not appeal to me at all. 

After baking. Okay, so it's not the most photogenic of breakfasts, but in the winter it is kind of nice to have a bright, sunny meal to start the day. 

Hopefully you all know how to make scrambled eggs. I started out with 1/2 of my plantain on the plate. It turns out that they taste really sweet and like a banana at this stage of ripeness. I tasted one before I decided if I would salt them or put cinnamon on them. I opted for the cinnamon. Then I opted to eat the other half, too. They are chewy and sweet, and not at all like a banana chip. 

I served my breakfast up with my favorite black tea with milk. While the video (and the link to my tea blog above) show Lipton tea with milk, I opted for my Kenyan black tea with milk. While we didn't have plantains in Kenya, we did have an egg for breakfast almost every morning.