A quick note before I go off to work: I returned to Jean Baptiste Labat‘s suggestion for a banana pie which he states can also be made with cooking bananas. Since I already know it works with sweet bananas, I got plantains this time. The instructions are fairly clear:
Plantains, (bananes), just like figues de l’Amerique, can be cooked in tartes. They are prepared with sugar, cinnamon, and a little lemon or orange peel.
I was in a hurry, so I used storebought puff pastry to enclose the pie. The plantain, left to ripen for ten days after purchase, turned out to be quite soft and sweet. I added just a little sugar, cinnamon, and the zest of a lemon to one pie, and the result was absolutely convincing. The filling stayed firmer and more cohesive than with bananas, but it was richly aromatic and intensely sweet without being overwhelming either way. The lemon taste really worked this time.
I suspect Labat intends the recipe for the kind of mature, almost overripe plantains The elsewhere describes being eaten as a breakfast food squashed into a porridge by hand. Still, just to see what happens I will try this with a firm, starchy one at some point.