The Ainsley Carrot Cake

The Miami Herald

SMASHING: What, you don’t make tostones? Well, you should. They’re great with grilled meat. Basically, they’re green plantains, peeled, sliced thick, fried, then smashed and refried. Season with salt. And for more kick, garlicky mojo or hot sauce.

The tricky part is the smashing. You’re dealing with a hot item and don’t want to burn your hands. Enter the tostonera, two slabs of wood fastened together: You put the fried plantain slice in between and — smash! You’re ready to refry.

Tostobueno® modifies the original by giving you indentations in which to place the plantain slice. The result is a perfectly round tostón. On the other side are deeper holes for elegant, cup-shaped tostones, suitable for filling.

The New York Post Christmas

The budding gourmet in your home will adore you even more if you reward her or him with The Ultimate Tostonera®. Gadget-geeks and foodies alike love the culinary contraption, a sleek, “nearly indestructible” bamboo plantain presser that takes all of the hassle out of making tostones the old-fashioned way. The beauty of this little number is that you can mash up to three at a time – three flats or three for stuffing.

Three Guys from Miami

When we were doing the photography for “Three Guys From Miami Celebrate Cuban,” we got the idea to make several tostones cups to dress up one of the plates. We tried to do it the old fashioned way — cutting a fat plantain and hollowing it out with a knife. Our results were not very photogenic, and we scrapped the whole idea.

If only we had the new Tostobueno® tostonera! This ingenious plantain smasher actually mashes and forms the plantain into a perfect little cup, suitable for stuffing. You cut the plantains to fit the bottom slot on the Tostobueno® and take them through the first frying step as you would a flat tostón.

Then you place a now softened plantain chunk in each of the two cups and close the lid. Special dowels on the opposite side of the masher press against the plantain and form it into a cup. Then fry the cups once again in hot oil — just as you normally would — until the cup is golden brown.

We were very impressed with the quality of the Tostobueno®. Unlike many tostoneras we’ve used in the past which tended to be made with cheap pine, the Tostobueno® is made with bamboo, a very smooth and hard wood that should last a long time in your kitchen.