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Dessert

Fried Bananas

Fried bananas are banana slices fried in lard, layered with dark brown sugar, then baked with sherry and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and sherry work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fried Bananas

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bananas

  1. Slice bananas thinly.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the banana slices until brown on both sides.

Layer and bake

  1. In a covered dish, layer the fried bananas with dark brown sugar alternately.

  2. Pour the sherry and water over the layered bananas.

  3. Cover the dish tightly and let it stand in a warm oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1 hour before serving.

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 + sherrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 sweet flavour once softened by frying and gentle heat.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like flavour that melts into the bananas as they stand.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a light acidity that balances the sugar.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the banana slices a golden browned surface.

The step that matters

Browning the banana slices in the fat. Frying until brown on both sides lets the sugars caramelise, building colour and flavour. Pale slices will taste flat and may turn mushy during the long covered standing time.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar. 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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