When I was growing up, I loved to eat these “guineítos” at my mom’s office parties. I loved the tanginess of the vinegar… You can eat these with toothpicks as an appetizer or as a side dish with your Arroz con Gandules and Pasteles.
GREEN BANANA ESCABECHE
24 green bananas, boiled and cut into slices ½ cup of green bell pepper, chopped Salt to taste Drizzle of vegetable or canola oil —————————————————— 2 cups of extra virgin olive oil ½ cup vinegar About 12 black peppercorns 4 bay leaves 3 cups of yellow onions, sliced thin 12 cloves of garlic, sliced The juice of 1 criollo lemon or lime Salt to taste
- In a large pot filled with salted water and a drizzle of vegetable oil, place green bananas to boil. They’ll be ready in about 20 minutes. I show you here a step-by step process to boil the green bananas.
- When they’re boiled, peel off the banana skin, allow them to cool off and slice them into 1/2” rounds slices. Set them aside.
- In a medium saucepan, add the olive oil, vinegar, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and garlic. Cook over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, until the onions have softened, but not browned. The onions should remain as white as possible. Let the mixture cool a bit.
- In a glass pyrex dish, while the banana slices are still somewhat warm, mix together the green banana slices and the olive oil/onion mixture and green peppers. Season with salt as needed. Let the green bananas marinate in the escabeche mixture for at least 2-3 hours. After the banana pieces have cooled off (at about the 1 hours mark), you can continue the marinating process in the refrigerator.
Serve directly from the fridge or at room temperature. You can drizzle the juice of one criollo lemon or lime before serving for added zip.
KarmaFree Cooking 
How many does this serve? 24 seems like a whole lot of plantains. I’m planning for a meal for 4.
Well… guineítos en escabeche is usually made for a crowd, not just as a side dish. Remember these are green bananas, not plantains. Although you could do it with either green or ripen plantains too. I would say just for a meal for 4, I would boil about 6-8 green bananas and adjust the escabeche ingredients.
Oh, I thought green bananas were used interchangeably with plantains. Oops! Well, I just made them, lol, with 8 plantains and cut the ingredients by 2/3. They must be drier than bananas because I had to make a another 1/3 of the oil dressing. It’s yummy but hard to swallow, lol. So just regular bananas but just super green?!
Bananas an plantains are somewhat interchangeable, but not in every case. This recipe calls for green bananas – just like the ones you like to eat with your cereal in the mornings, but green, very unripe.
I have made this recipe using plantains too… but ripe platains. The ones that are already yellow in color with a few black spots already showing.
Both green bananas and green plantains are starchy… but their texture is different. Boiled green bananas tend to be softer in texture than green plantains. We tend to FRY green plantains to make tostones, arañitas, chicharritas or plantain chips, and even mofongo. But green bananas are usually boiled or made into Pasteles or used as part of a fritter batter.