Plátanos al Horno con Naranja Agria

This is from Yucatán. Specifically from the home kitchens around Mérida and the smaller towns of the peninsula, where a plate of cochinita pibil or pavo en escabeche is never set on the table without something sweet and sour to answer it. These plantains are that answer.

The plantain itself is not Yucatecan in origin, it traveled here from West Africa through the Caribbean, but the peninsula adopted it the way it adopted everything: by putting naranja agria on it. Naranja agria, the sour orange the Spanish brought from Seville and that grows in patios all over Yucatán, is the citrus that defines this kitchen. It is in the cochinita, in the escabeche, in the salbutes, and it is here, cutting the sweetness of the caramelized plantain with a bitter-sour edge that orange juice and lime juice together can only approximate.

Baking the plantain whole in its skin is the trick. The skin holds the moisture in, the flesh confits in its own sugars and a little manteca, and the syrup that runs out of the slits at the end is essentially candy. You do not peel a plantain to roast it in Yucatán. You let the skin do the work. The cook who taught me this was a señora in Tixkokob who set them in the bottom of her oven while the cochinita finished on top, the lard from one dripping down to baste the other. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.