Tostones with Roasted Garlic Mayo

As I walk by the bananas in the grocery store, the often overlooked plantains cry out "use us, use us" and I put my head down and quickly move along regretting that I never do anything with them. With the Cuban burgers on the menu I was thinking about Caribbean sides and I remembered something about unripe plantains being similar in texture to potatoes and I seemed to recall something about frying them. A quick search on the internet and I came up with tostones which sounded like a great side for my Cuban burgers. Tostones are essentially slices of unripe plantain that are fried in oil, flattened into discs and then fried a second time until golden brown and crispy. As I often do with fries, I was thinking of serving the tostones with some mayo for dipping, but I read that they are commonly served with a garlic sauce and then the idea of a roasted garlic mayo dipping sauce popped into my head.

The tostones were pretty easy to make and I found them much less temperamental that french fries are to cook. They came out a beautifully golden brown and they were nice and crispy and good! The texture of the tostones was very similar to that of potatoes and they made a perfect substitute for fries with the Cuban burgers. As good as the tostones were the roasted garlic mayo made them even better and it certainly was 'lick the bowl clean' good! I am definitely going to be making tostones again!

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