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Fry Stand · Battered Sweet Plantain

Aborrajados

Aborrajados — street food from Valle del Cauca, Colombia
Photo: Ethnobotanical Historian / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The name traces back to 'borrajo,' an old Spanish word for hot cooking embers — a nod to an older method of cooking food in ashes that eventually got carried over to deep-frying.

Ripe plantain is sliced, sandwiched around a slab of soft cheese, dipped in an egg batter, and deep-fried until golden. Street stands across Cali sell them hot in paper, often alongside guava paste.

Why it's made this way: Valle del Cauca's plantain plantations make the fruit cheap and abundant, and Cali's street-food scene turned the sweet-savory combination into one of its most recognized fried snacks.
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Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.