Mofongo

Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish built around mashed plantains as its main ingredient, blending Spanish, West African and Taino culinary influences. The earliest known written recipes appear in El Cocinero Puerto Riqueno o Formulario, Puerto Rico's first cookbook, published in 1859. Green plantains are cut into pieces and typically fried, though boiling and roasting are also used, then mashed together with salt, garlic, pork, broth and cooking oil using a wooden mortar and pestle called a pilon, and formed into a tight ball meant to absorb the surrounding condiments, traditionally served with broth and often chicharron. The name mofongo is thought to derive from the Kikongo term mfwenge-mfwenge, meaning a great amount of anything, a nod to the vigorous mashing technique at the dish's African roots.