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Dessert

Fried Bananas

Fried bananas are sliced bananas coated in flour, optionally egg and cracker crumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the bananas and cut each into three slices.

  2. Coat the banana slices well with flour.

Coat and chill

  1. Roll the banana slices in egg.

  2. Roll the banana slices in cracker crumbs.

  3. Chill the coated banana slices in the refrigerator for one hour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a frying pan.

  2. Heat oil in a deep fryer.

  3. Sauté the banana slices in the hot butter until golden.

  4. Fry the banana slices in deep oil until golden.

  5. Fry the chilled banana slices in hot oil until golden.

  6. Drain the fried banana slices on paper towels.

  7. Serve the banana slices 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Banana + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,725 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Bananas
Provide the main body and sweetness of the fried slices.
Flour
Dry the banana surface so the coating adheres and browns.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the cracker crumbs stick to the slices.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and aids browning in the pan.

The step that matters

Chill the coated slices for one hour. Chilling firms the egg and crumb coating so it stays attached during frying. Without it, the coating can slide off or absorb excess oil.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg. 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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