Green banana boiled and mashed with butter and costeño cheese into a soft, stretchy mass, loosened with suero costeño. The signature breakfast of Santa Marta, most often served with chicharrón on top.
Cayeye, also called mote de guineo, is the breakfast dish of Santa Marta and the Magdalena coast. Green bananas (guineo) are mashed with costeño cheese, butter and suero, and the most popular version is crowned with a strip of chicharrón. The technique belongs to the Caribbean coast and is not found in the Andean interior, where maize dominates breakfast.
Soft, slightly sticky, faintly sweet from the green banana and salty-tangy from the costeño cheese and suero costeño. The chicharrón on top gives a crisp, fatty crackle against the yielding mash.
Green bananas are boiled whole in their skins until completely soft, then peeled and mashed hot in a pan with butter, grated costeño cheese and a splash of suero costeño. The mashing is done over low heat while working in the dairy, so the starch absorbs the fat and the mass becomes stretchy and cohesive rather than gluey.
Variations
In the Sierra Nevada foothills it is served with fried egg instead of chicharrón. A sweeter variant folds in panela.
On the Palate
Where Cayeye sits in the Colombian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
6 steps · 10 min
- 18 min
Boil 6 green bananas in their skins in salted water for 20 minutes until a knife pierces them easily.
Watch outBoil the green bananas until a knife slides in easily — under-cooked they stay starchy and won't mash smooth.
- 22 min
Drain, peel while hot, and place the flesh in a wide pan over low heat.
- 34 min
Add 2 tbsp butter and mash vigorously with a fork or masher.
- 46 min
Grate in 150g costeño cheese and pour in 3 tbsp suero costeño; keep mashing and working the mass for 4-5 minutes until smooth and stretchy.
Watch outKeep mashing and working in the dairy over low heat until it turns stretchy — that's the starch drinking the fat; stop early and it's gluey.
- 51 min
Taste and add salt only if needed, since the cheese and suero are salty.
- 62 min
Serve hot, crowned with strips of crisp chicharrón.
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