Claclo

Ingredients

The plantains

• 4very ripe plantains
• skins black or heavily blackened
• about 800 g peeled
• mashed

The seasoning

• a thumb of fresh ginger
• grated finely
• 1hot chilli, finely chopped
• or to taste
• half a small onion, grated
• optional
• half a teaspoon salt
• half a teaspoon grated nutmeg
• optional

To bind

• 100 gplain flour
• or maize flour
• or a mixture
• 2 tablespoonssugar
• only if the plantains are not sweet
• a little water, if needed

For frying

• 1 litrevegetable oil
• or palm oil
• or enough for 6 cm depth

To serve

• hot, on their own
• or with roasted peanuts
• as a street snack

Directions

1. Put them in a paper bag with a banana to speed it up. Do not refrigerate them while ripening. Cut off both ends. Score the skin lengthways in two or three places.
2. Peel the strips away with your thumb. Mash them thoroughly with a fork or a masher. Grate the ginger finely rather than chopping it. Use a good quantity of it. Add the chopped chilli. Add the grated onion if you are using it.
3. Squeeze the grated onion first. It adds unwanted water otherwise. Add the salt and the nutmeg. Ivorian and Ghanaian food uses hot chillies. Adjust the quantity to your own tolerance. Wear gloves when handling hot chillies. Add flour a little at a time. Mix it in until the mixture holds together. It should be a thick paste rather than a batter.
4. Add flour cautiously and test a small ball. Fry one ball before committing the batch. If it falls apart, add a little more flour. Taste the plantain before the flour goes in. Use a deep heavy pot. Fill it no more than one third full.
5. Oil bubbles up when wet mixture goes in. Never leave hot oil unattended. Keep a well fitting lid within reach. If it catches fire, turn off the heat and cover it. Heat the oil to one hundred and seventy degrees. That is moderate rather than very hot. Roll small balls about the size of a walnut. Fry five or six at a time only. Do not crowd the pot. Fry them for three or four minutes.
6. Turn them so they colour evenly. They should be deep golden brown. Break it open and look inside. It should be cooked through and soft. Lift them out with a slotted spoon. Drain them on a rack over kitchen paper. Let the oil recover between batches.
7. Serve them hot, within minutes. That combination of sweet, hot and salty works well. Make it and fry it the same day. Reheat them from frozen in a hot oven.

Technique

• Use plantains that are genuinely overripe, with black or nearly black skins and soft deep-yellow flesh. Their starch has turned to sugar; an underripe plantain is starchy, bland and will not mash, which is the commonest mistake with this dish.
• Do not refrigerate plantains while ripening. Cold blackens the skin without softening the flesh, so a black skin from the fridge tells you nothing. Ripen them in a paper bag with a banana at room temperature.
• Fry at 170 degrees and watch them more closely than a plain dough. Ripe plantain is full of sugar, which browns and burns quickly, so the outside can blacken before the inside cooks.
• Fry one test ball before committing the batch. If it falls apart, add a little more flour; if it comes out heavy, add water or more mashed plantain. That single test saves the batch.
• Add flour cautiously. Too much gives a heavy tough ball, too little and the mixture disperses in the oil — you want a thick paste that holds its shape when squeezed, not a bread dough.
• Taste the mashed plantain for sweetness before the flour goes in. That is safe to taste, unlike a raw flour mixture, and very ripe fruit needs no added sugar at all.
• Grate the ginger rather than chopping it, and use a generous amount. Ginger is what makes this snack what it is, and its fibres are unpleasant in chunks.
• Squeeze grated onion before adding it. It brings unwanted water into a mixture that is already wet.
• Deep-frying rules apply: fill the pot no more than a third, never leave it unattended, keep a lid within reach, and if the oil catches fire turn off the heat and smother it. Never throw water on burning oil.
• Plantain is not a dessert banana — it is starchier and always cooked, giving a firm starchy food when green and a soft sweet one when ripe. That range is why it matters so much across West Africa.
• Kaklo in Ghana is essentially the same snack under a clearly related name, and kelewele works the same sweet-and-hot idea with cubes of fried plantain. The atlas records the family without claiming which came first.

Substitutions

• Maize flour replaces wheat flour, or the two are mixed; maize gives a slightly grittier crust.
• Scotch bonnet is the chilli actually used; any hot chilli substitutes.
• Palm oil replaces vegetable oil and gives a redder, more characteristically West African result.
• The onion is optional and many versions have none.
• Nutmeg, cinnamon or cloves can join the ginger, as they do in kelewele.
• A little sugar can be added when the plantains are not fully ripe.

Variations

• Kaklo in Ghana is the same snack under a closely related name.
• Kelewele fries cubes of ripe plantain in the same ginger and chilli spicing rather than mashing them.
• Alloco, fried ripe plantain slices, is Côte d’Ivoire’s best known plantain dish.
• Beignets de banane in Guinea use dessert bananas in a wheat batter instead.
• A version with grated coconut worked into the mixture is made in some places.
• Botokoin and bofrot are the plain wheat-dough relatives in Togo and Ghana.

Frequently asked questions

What is Claclo?

Claclo is a street food from Côte d’Ivoire: sweet fried ripe-plantain dough balls spiced with ginger and chili.

How long does Claclo take to make?

Claclo takes 20 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes makes about 24. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Claclo?

Yes, within limits. Maize flour replaces wheat flour, or the two are mixed; maize gives a slightly grittier crust. Scotch bonnet is the chilli actually used; any hot chilli substitutes. Palm oil replaces vegetable oil and gives a redder, more characteristically West African result. The onion is optional and many versions have none. Nutmeg, cinnamon or cloves can join the ginger, as they do in kelewele. A little sugar can be added when the plantains are not fully ripe.

What is the most important thing to get right in Claclo?

Put them in a paper bag with a banana to speed it up. Do not refrigerate them while ripening. Cut off both ends. Score the skin lengthways in two or three places.