KO EN Peruvian Main course⏱ 55 minEdit history

Tacacho con Cecina (Roasted Green Plantain Balls with Cured Pork)

Name: Tacacho con Cecina (Roasted Green Plantain Balls with Cured Pork)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Peruvian
Ingredients: 4 green plantains; 80 g lard; 1 tsp salt; 400 g cecina (salted, dried pork); 4 chorizo; 1 red onion; 2 limes; 1 ají amarillo or a yellow chilli; 1 handful coriander; 0.5 tsp salt

The Peruvian Amazon's signature plate: green plantain roasted over charcoal, mashed while hot with lard and shaped into balls (tacacho), served beside grilled cecina — salted, dried pork — and chorizo. The plantain is used as a starch, like a potato, not as a fruit, and only a green one, low in sugar, can sit over coals long enough to cook through without burning. Nothing is boiled, so no water goes in; the lard is all that loosens the mash.

Steps

If the cecina is very salty, soak it in water for 30 minutes and pat it dry. Cut it into palm-sized pieces.
⏲ 30 min
Light the charcoal and wait until the flames have died and the coals are covered in white ash. Without a grill, use a ridged pan over medium heat or the oven grill.
Cut the ends off the plantains, score the skin lengthwise and peel it off. A green plantain holds its skin tightly, so work it away along the cut with your thumb. Cut each into three.
Roast the plantain on the grill for 20-25 minutes, turning every few minutes, until it is golden all over with a few charred spots and a knife goes into the middle without resistance.
⏲ 25 min
Meanwhile melt the lard over low heat and stir in the salt.
Put the plantain in a mortar or a heavy bowl while it is hot and crush it with a pestle, adding the melted lard in three goes. Mash for 2-3 minutes only, and stop as soon as it holds in one mass, even with coarse bits left.
⏲ 3 min
Grease your hands with lard and shape the mash into 8 balls while it is warm. You can roll them briefly on the grill to warm the outside again.
Put the cecina and chorizo on the grill. The cecina needs 3-4 minutes a side and is done when the fat at its edges has gone clear and golden. Turn the fresh chorizo often for 12-15 minutes, until it is firm right through and reads 71°C at the centre. Paprika keeps chorizo red even when it is fully cooked, so do not judge it by colour. If you used fresh pork shoulder, cook that through as well.
⏲ 15 min
Slice the onion very thin, rinse it in cold water and drain it. Toss it with the lime juice, the sliced chilli, coriander and salt.
Put two tacacho, a piece of cecina and a chorizo on each plate and serve the salsa criolla alongside.

Tips & Variations

Variations

Boiled: Korean Wikipedia notes that the plantain is usually roasted over charcoal, but that in some regions, such as Huánuco, it is boiled instead. Boiling loses the smoke and puts water into the fruit, so it takes less lard to mash.
With sajino chicharrón: the traditional version, per the same article, sometimes used chicharrón of sajino — a peccary — in place of the cecina or chorizo. Crisp pork chicharrón, broken up, is the nearest substitute.
Sides: it is served with salsa criolla, a salad, and a hot salsa made with cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum). Without cocona, make the hot salsa from tomato and lime.
The other end of the ripening: rellenitos de plátano boil a black-skinned plantain first, mash it, wrap it round black beans and fry it as a Guatemalan dessert. A ripe fruit has so much sugar that in oil the outside burns before the middle cooks, so it is cooked in water. The same fruit used green can be roasted over coals.
The plate: usually two tacacho, a piece of cecina and a piece of chorizo, with the proportions changed on request. It is one of the favourite foods of the Fiesta de San Juan in Peru.

Tips

The plantain must be green. Red red deals with fried plantain and treats the unripe fruit as the failure: "A yellow plantain is still starch: fried, it is not sweet and tastes like a dull potato." That starch is exactly what tacacho wants. Here the plantain takes the place of a potato, not of a fruit.
Which is why it can sit over coals. The same page keeps its oil low for this reason: "A ripe plantain has turned its starch to sugar, so it browns far faster than any starchy vegetable." The other way round, a green plantain with little sugar can sit over the coals for twenty minutes and more without burning outside before the middle is cooked (browning).
Roasted, not boiled. Fufu boils the same fruit and pounds it, adding water a little at a time: "Poured in all at once it goes slack, and slack fufu cannot be rescued — more pounding will not remove water." Tacacho roasted over charcoal never takes any water in, and the lard does the work of loosening the mash.
Mashed, not pounded. Fufu's stretch comes from long pounding — as that page puts it, "pounding time is the texture." Tacacho is not a stretchy dough but a coarse mash that holds in one piece, so stop as soon as it does. Mashed potatoes gives the reason: "Shear them and amylose leaks out of the ruptured cells into the liquid and tangles into long chains — that is the glue." The longer you beat it, the further it goes that way.
The lard does the milk's job too. Mashed potatoes puts the butter in before the milk and explains why: "Fat coats the separated cells and effectively waterproofs them, so they take up less of the milk and stay light." Tacacho has no milk, so the fat alone loosens the mash. If it is stiff, add a spoonful more.
Mash it hot, shape it warm. In fufu's words, "Gelatinised starch is pliable while hot; as it cools it starts to retrograde and no amount of pounding will make it elastic." Cold plantain crumbles instead of holding. If the balls have cooled, roll them on the grill to warm the outside.
The salt is in the meat. Cecina is salt-cured, so the tacacho takes only a little salt. Taste a piece of the cecina before you decide.