What To Do With ... A Banana
The Sunday Age
Sunday June 21, 1998
Apart from just peeling it and shoving it down the hatch, there are plenty of things you can do with one of these elongated yellow fruits. They're lovely slightly mushed up with a little cream and a sprinkle of white sugar and served with crusty white bread (also known as a banana sandwich). Pop one in the blender with milk and whatever flavourings you like for an easy breakfast. Banana cake is an old favourite, of course - it's nice to make individual muffin-sized ones with a passionfruit/yoghurt icing. For that old British Raj feel next time you make a curry, chop up a banana, sprinkle it with desiccated coconut and serve as a side dish alongside peanuts, raisins and chopped hardboiled egg. Bananas cook nicely too - you can make an easy dessert by slicing bananas in half lengthways, placing them in an oval baking dish, sprinkling with brown sugar and topping off with a squeeze of orange juice. A drop of vanilla essence or some cinnamon doesn't hurt either. Then stick it in the oven until the sugar caramelises and you get lovely, sticky, crunchy bananas. It takes about 40 minutes and isn't half as good if you undercook it, so get it in the oven early.
© 1998 The Sunday Age