Having had leftover tacos (home-made of course!) for dinner, I still had energy left over to cook some desert tonight. I got a couple cookbooks at the Library’s monthly book sale yesterday, and had been eying a recipe for fried bananas from the 1979 Sunset Mexican Cookbook. Another one of my sub-goals for broadening my culinary experiences is attempting more international dishes, being able to make meals with different ethnic flare. In Costa Rica they served a lot of fried bananas, and being something they just don’t have in San Diego, even if I was sort of ho-hum about them at first (until I realized with ketchup on them they tasted like a french fry) .
Looked pretty simple too, requires one banana (green-tipped, not overly ripe) and 1.5 teaspons of butter.
Melt butter over medium-low heat in a saucepan (“wide frying pan”).
Cut the banana lengthwise. I cut it in half as well since my saucepan was a little on the small side.
Add the banana (cut side down) in the saucepan (in the butter) and continue cooking on medium-low heat for 10 minutes (until lightly browned on the bottom). Oh my goodness a teaspoon and a half looks like a lot of butter melted!
Carefully turn the bananas over and cook for another 5-10 minutes (until lightly browned on both sides now).
Serve warm.
My rating? It really doesn’t taste anything like the fried bananas in Costa Rica, a lot more juicy and buttery tasting. But none the less it made a fantastic (fairly) healthy desert, definitely worthy of repeating. And it really was every bit as simple as it appeared. It didn’t require a lot of babysitting while it cooked or anything, I only checked it a couple times and set the timer. The only thing that was sort of hard was figuring out how to flip the bananas over. I ended up using a combination of a pancake spatula and a pair of tongs. It sort of worked, but was a little awkward. That part of the process could be improved perhaps with different tools.
A little bit of a healthier (and I think tastier) version is:
1 Banana
1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
*Cinnamon, Nutmeg (as much as you want)
1 tablespoon raw sugar
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
Heat up oil in a skillet on medium heat, slice banana (similar to your recipe) and place in oil, cover with cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar. I add the honey really close to the end because it burns easily.
I add the raw sugar at the end when it's off the stove to make it all a little crunchy on top. Another nice addition might be nuts, though I haven't tried it yet.