Mofongo is an Afro- Puerto Rican dish with fried plantains as its main ingredient. Plantains are picked green and mashed with salt and water in a wooden pilón, a kitchen device also known as mortar and pestle. The object is to produce a tight ball of mashed plantains that would absorb the attending condiments and have either pork cracklings (Chicharrón) or bits of bacon inside. Most dressings and mixtures include broth, garlic, and olive oil. It is traditionally served with fried meat and chicken broth soup. Particular flavors result from variations that include vegetables, chicken, shrimp, beef, or octopus packed inside or around the plantain orb.
Mofongo evolved from fufu using African method with Spanish and Taíno ingredients. Plantains are most often used, but other starchy roots native to the island used by Taínos can also be used. Puerto Ricans have an obsession with fried food known collectively as cuchifrito in New York City and Kiosks in Puerto Rico. The usage of Spanish ingredients such as pork, garlic, broth, and olive oil together is heavily used in Puerto Rican cuisine. Staple dishes such as arroz con gandules, alcapurria, pasteles, habichuelas, recaíto, arroz junto and many other dishes all include garlic, pork, olive oil, and broth. The method of frying comes from the African side and is heavily used more than anyplace in the Caribbean. Broth is often made with chicken and sofrito. Sofrito is made with Spanish and Taíno fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
In Cuba, Mofongo is called Machuquillo "por la acción de machucar el plátano en el mortero" (because of the task of mashing the plantains in the mortar). The plantains are not fried but boiled. Machuquillo is often garnished with parsley and served with roasted pork or chicken.
During the 1960s many Dominicans who feared the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo fled to Puerto Rico and New York City. Mofongo caught on quickly with Dominicans living in Puerto Rico and New York City. Mofongo has become a flagship food for many Dominican restaurant adding their own flavors such as queso frito (fried cheese) to mofongo, mashed with no broth and sometimes olive oil is replace with butter. The plantains in making traditional mofongo are not always fried, they are sometimes boiled, shaped into a ball and stuffed with meat. During the 1960s mofongo started to appear in Dominican cookbook's. Mofongo stuffed with shrimp (camaron in Spanish) is called camarofongo.
