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Dessert

Fried Bananas

Fried bananas are ripe bananas sliced, sugared, and fried in butter until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,536 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Fried Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the ripe bananas and slice them lengthwise.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the slices in butter until golden.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Banana + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Banana + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,102 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe bananas
Provide the main body, sweetness and soft texture once cooked.
Sugar
Sweetens the slices and helps them caramelise and brown in the pan.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in butter until golden. Sugar browns quickly in hot butter, so heat that is too high can scorch the sugar before the banana softens. Medium heat gives even golden colour and a tender interior.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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