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Veracruz's Sotavento snack of ripe plantain mashed with manteca, touched with salt and sugar, shaped by hand, and fried in lard until the edges turn deep gold.
Veracruz, the Sotavento, the river country around Tlacotalpan, Alvarado, Cosamaloapan, and the lower Papaloapan. That is where mogo mogo lives, not in restaurant menus trying to explain Veracruz with one plate of huachinango.
This is Afro-Veracruz cooking at home: ripe macho plantains, salt, a little sugar, and manteca de cerdo. No chile. No salsa needed. Not every Mexican snack has to bite you back. The plantain brings the sweetness, the lard brings the roundness, and the hand shaping gives you the texture, soft in the center, browned at the edges.
I learned this from a woman near Tlacotalpan who made them for children in the afternoon, setting the balls on a clay plate while the oil mark from the lard still shone on the surface. She told me, 'No los hagas bonitos, hazlos parejos.' Don't make them pretty, make them even. That is the instruction. Even balls fry evenly. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
Use plátano macho very ripe, with blackened skin and flesh that smells sweet before it touches the pan. Green plantain is for tostones and other work. Here you need sweetness. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
Mogo mogo belongs to the Afro-Veracruz foodways of the Sotavento, where Atlantic trade, enslaved African labor, Caribbean ingredients, and Gulf Coast home cooking met from the colonial period onward. Plantains arrived in Mexico through Spanish and Portuguese colonial routes after moving from Southeast Asia into Africa, and Veracruz became one of the places where the fruit entered everyday cooking through port culture and plantation economies. Unlike the better-known savory plantain dishes of the Caribbean, Veracruz's mogo mogo is a domestic snack, usually made without chile, which is exactly why it teaches people that Mexican regional cooking is broader than the usual national clichés.
Quantity
4
skins mostly black
Quantity
1 teaspoon
Quantity
2 tablespoons
plus more if the plantains are not fully sweet
Quantity
2 tablespoons
softened, for the mash
Quantity
2 cups
for frying, or enough to come 1 inch up the pan
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| very ripe plátanos machosskins mostly black | 4 |
| kosher salt | 1 teaspoon |
| granulated sugarplus more if the plantains are not fully sweet | 2 tablespoons |
| manteca de cerdosoftened, for the mash | 2 tablespoons |
| manteca de cerdofor frying, or enough to come 1 inch up the pan | 2 cups |
Use plátanos machos with skins mostly black and only a few yellow patches. They should give slightly under your thumb. If the skin is green, stop. That plantain belongs to another recipe. Mogo mogo needs sweetness and soft flesh.
Cut the ends from the plantains and slice each one into 3 pieces, still in the peel. Put them in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a simmer and cook 15 to 18 minutes, until a knife slides through the flesh without resistance. Cooking them in the peel keeps the plantain from taking on too much water.
Drain the plantains and let them cool just enough to handle. Peel them while still warm and put the flesh in a wide bowl. Mash with a potato masher or heavy wooden spoon until mostly smooth, leaving a few small pieces. Add the salt, sugar, and 2 tablespoons softened manteca. Mix hard until the mash holds together. This is not cake batter. It should be thick and workable.
Wet your hands lightly and shape the warm mash into balls about the size of a small lime, 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons each. Press firmly so they do not break in the lard. Set them on a plate while you heat the fat. Make them even, not precious. Así se hace y punto.
Heat the manteca de cerdo in a heavy skillet over medium heat until a tiny bit of plantain sizzles immediately when dropped in. Fry the balls in batches, turning gently with a spoon, 3 to 4 minutes per batch. They should turn deep golden with bronzed spots and glisten from the lard. Do not crowd the pan or they will soften instead of brown.
Lift the mogo mogo onto a rack or brown paper to drain for a minute. Serve warm or at room temperature on a clay plate. They should be soft inside, lightly sweet, salty enough to wake up the plantain, and browned at the edges. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
1 serving (about 40g)
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