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Dessert

Banana Fkittebs

A batter of flour, eggs, milk, and bananas is fried into golden pieces served with citrus sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Banana Fkittebs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Slowly add the milk and mix well.

  3. Beat the egg yolk and add it to the mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until stiff and fold it into the batter.

  5. Stir in the melted butter.

Fry and serve

  1. Remove the skins from the bananas and cut them in half lengthwise, then crosswise.

  2. Dip the banana pieces in the batter and fry them in deep fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve with lemon or orange sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats the banana pieces.
Egg white
Beaten until stiff, it traps air and lightens the batter.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying, helping the batter puff and rise.
Bananas
Provide the sweet, soft filling that contrasts with the crisp coating.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Stiff egg white holds air that lightens the batter. Stirring it vigorously deflates the foam, so fold it gently in to keep the coating light and puffed when fried.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, butter, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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