Plantain Flour

Plantain flour is made from green, unripe plantain, dried and milled to a powder, and it is a base ingredient rather than a dish. In Nigeria and Ghana it is best known as an alternative flour for swallows, standing in for or blended with yam flour in amala, and it also thickens soups and stews. The unripe plantain is the point. As plantain ripens its starch converts to sugar, so a ripe fruit would give a sweet flour that behaves quite differently. Green plantain is almost entirely starch, which is what allows the flour to form a smooth, stretchy swallow when stirred into hot water. It carries a lower glycemic index than wheat flour, generally cited in the range of 38 to 55 depending on variety and ripeness, and that has given it a second life as a wheat substitute for people managing blood sugar or avoiding gluten. That is a nutritional observation rather than medical advice, and anyone using it for that reason should treat it as one part of a wider diet rather than a remedy. Making it at home is slow rather than difficult: the drying alone takes eight to twelve hours, which is why most households buy it ready milled.