Bananas are the king of fruits and one of the most popular fruits in the world. They are a bit like avocados - we all love them but we don’t really understand them. I have never eaten a fresh banana in my life but they are great to cook with.
Knickerbocker glories, banana splits and banana milkshakes are all great but there is so much more you can do with bananas. They can be used in savoury dishes as well as sweet.
We use about 60 – 70 bananas a week in the restaurant but most of them go into savoury dishes. We have a dish on the menu at the moment that is cottage cheese, roast bananas, coriander and spices and it’s served alongside a chicken dish.
You can treat the banana like a vegetable. Anything a root vegetable can do (for example a parsnip or celeriac) a banana can do and they can take a lot of salt. Try slicing a banana into 1cm thick slices and bake it in the oven – it will come out like celeriac.
Another restaurant favourite is a pork dish with curry sauce, rice and bananas. It sounds mad but bananas work really well in curries. The next time you make a curry, put some bananas in it with sultanas and coconut, don’t tell anyone and see what everyone thinks!
Black bananas are perfect for baking in the oven. Stick them in with the skin on at a low heat until it turns really black. When it comes out the banana will be almost jelly like to eat and it goes well with chilli, yogurt or curry sauce. If you let it go cold the natural jelly sets and it’s delicious. They are also fantastic cooked on the barbecue.
I love to take a banana (peel on) wrap it in Parma ham, sprinkle with some Parmesan cheese and bake for 40 minutes then sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Wonderful!
There’s a classic dish called fillet of sole caprice (or filet de sole caprice) which is fillets of dover sole, capers, butter, noisette potatoes and roast bananas. Dover sole goes really well with bananas.
Another dish I love is Yorkshire Pudding Surprise. Coat your banana with some Yorkshire pudding batter; deep fry and serve with onion gravy and thyme. It sounds weird but it works so well.
For a sweet treat, slice a banana (peel on) then sprinkle with sugar and stick under the grill. It comes out like a banana crisp.
Another popular banana snack is banana chips. I find them very oily but you can adapt them. Add oatmeal, grape nuts and icing sugar to banana chips and it makes a less oily, sprinkly banana mixture.
My mum used to make this fantastic dessert – take some apple crumble then add walnuts and sliced banana then top with the crumble and cook. Delicious!
You can dry, powder, bake, sauté or fry bananas. It’s such a wonderful product.
And there is nothing better than cold custard with bananas or some cold rice pudding with cooked bananas, sugar syrup, lemon juice and vanilla.
A very healthy and very interesting fruit – we can push it further than we do at the moment.
Bananas are high in fibre but did you know that they contain around 75 percent water?
Here are 10 more fascinating facts that you might not know about bananas.
1Bananas are naturally radioactive because they contain relatively high amounts of potassium-40, a radioactive isotope of potassium. However, there’s no need to worry as this naturally occurring radiation have very little effect on the body.
2A banana plant is actually classed as a herb.
3A bunch of bananas is sometimes called a hand, while a single banana is called a finger
4Eating a banana can cheer you up. The banana is the only fruit that contains amino acid tryptophan and vitamin B6, which together help the body produce serotonin.
5Over 100 billion bananas are eaten annually worldwide.
6Banana plants belong to the same botanical family as lilies, palms and orchids.
7 The goldfinger banana is a hybrid, created by Philip Rowe, which tastes like an apple.
8 There are approximately 1,000 different types of banana plant in the world but most are unpalatable.
9Bananas are one of the healthiest natural food sources around. They contain almost no fat, are low in calories and high in vitamin B6, fibre and potassium.
10Fibres taken from banana plants can be used to make clothes.
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