Banana Ketchup

I know, this sounds weird but it’s actually a popular condement in the Philipines! The first time I heard about it was about a year ago, and believe me I was really surprised. Then, after giving it a bit of thought it kind of made sense in my head. I never tasted it though.

A bit over a week ago I was chatting at the dinner table of an academic symposium I attended about unusual foods. I mentioned banana ketchup and, just as I expected, a few people were weirded out. So I said that I would make a batch and get the recipe on my blog if it was successful. The next day, I did a bit of recipe browsing online and came up with my own variation. The result turned out quite good, but it is an acquired taste. It reminded me of a sweet brown sauce minus the smokiness. I’ve got no idea if that’s how banana ketchup is supposed to taste like, since it’s the first time I have it, but it’s surprisingly good with meats.

Here’s my recipe!

Banana Ketchup

Ingredients:

• 3 very ripe bananas
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 2 cloves
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tbsp soft brown sugar
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/4 cup vinegar (I used sherry)
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 chilli

Execution:

1. Roughly chop all the “choppable” ingredients (bananas, garlic, onion, chilli.
2. In a sauce pan add the oil, garlic and onions. Sweat off intil the onions soften.
3. Add the tomato paste, spices and cook off for 1 minute.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients, cover and cook on a low heat for 30-40 minutes.
5. Throw away the cloves and blend until smooth.
6. Let it cool to room temperature and store in the fridge for upto a month.

Tips:

• The best way to store this is in a glass jar or bottle. Specifically, get your jar and its lid (NOT SCREWED ON) and fully immerse it in a pot of hot water. Bring to the boil and remove after a few minutes. This way the jar is sterilised and will ensure that your ketchup (or whatever else you want to put in it – eg. marmelade) lasts considerably longer.
• If you don’t have a blender just finely chop the onion and garlic. It should turn out just fine.

I don’t always like banoffee pie but when I do it’s got to be awesome

Last weekend I had a request from a friend for a banoffee recipe for my blog. I rarely like banoffee pie, so this would be a good challenge. For those who are not familiar with it, banoffee pie is a traditional English layered desert made with a cookie crumb base, dulce de leche (sweetened milk that’s boiled until it forms a caramel like sauce, bananas, cream and chocolate).

The two most frequent problems I have with the banoffee is either the dulce de leche tasting like condensed milk, or the dish as a whole being too sweet. Having these in mind, I replaced the dulce de leche with my salted caramel sauce (great on pretty much anything).

Here’s my banoffee interpretation for a 9″ round tin:

Banoffee Pie

Ingredients

Base:

• 200g Digestive biscuits
• 50g melted unsalted butter

Salted Caramel:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 40g unsalted butter (cut in small pieces)
• 1/2 cup double cream
• a few pinches sea salt

Topping:

• 250ml double cream
• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• 50g dark chocolate

• 2 bananas

Execution

1. Start by making the base. To do so, blend the biscuits in a food processor and then add the melted butter. If you don’t have a food processor just bash the biscuits until they look like breadcrumbs and mix in the butter.
2. Put the cookie mix in the baking tin, pack it down and put in the fridge to set.
3. While the base is cooling start making the salted caramel sauce. Get all the caramel ingredients ready. Timing is very important when making caramel, so this is a necessary step. WARNING: DO NOT TOUCH OR TASTE THE SAUCE UNTIL COMPLETELY COOL. Sugar has rather high thermal capacity and will be at approximately 180C. This means that it’s almost certain that you’ll get a nasty burn if it comes in contact with you.
4. Put the sugar in a pan over medium heat and stir occasionally using a whisk until the sugar is completely liquid. At this point just leave it alone to darken. The sugar should take a dark amber colour. Note that the more you darken the colour, the caramel flavour will be more intense but less sweet. Just note that the line between an intense caramel flavour and a burnt caramel is rather thin. If you’re unsure just go with a lighter caramel.
5. Turn the heat off, wait for 15-20 seconds and add the butter.
6. Stir CAREFULLY with your whisk until the butter is fully integrated.
7. Add the cream and a few pinches of sea salt and keep whisking until it mixed thoroughly. Put it aside and let it cool.
8. When the caramel cools to room temperature put it over the cookie base and turn your attention to the bananas.
9. Slice the bananas about 1/2 cm and layer them over the caramel.
10. In a big bowl whisk the cream and the icing sugar until it holds its shape. Be careful if you’re using an electric mixer because you can easily go overboard and turn the cream into butter. I prefer manual labour for this one!
11. Spoon the cream over the bananas and smoothen using a spoon or a spatula.
12. Scrape the dark chocolate with a knife over the cream to get the dark chocolate flakes in the picture below. Once you’ve got enough chocolate on the cream you can just eat the rest 😉 .If you can’t be bothered to make chocolate flakes just grate the chocolate or sieve some cocoa.
13. Refrigerate for about an hour (if you can wait for that long) and enjoy!