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Dessert

Fried Bananas

Fried bananas are bananas coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried in lard until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fried Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the bananas and set aside.

  2. In a bowl, mix the beaten egg with the milk.

  3. Dip each banana whole into the egg mixture, then coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Heat the lard in a kettle until boiling.

  2. Fry the coated bananas for 3 to 5 minutes until they are a delicate brown color.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Banana + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe bananas
Provide the sweet, soft filling that cooks through inside the crisp coating.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the banana so the coating adheres during frying.
Milk
Thins the egg into a wash that carries the crumbs evenly onto the fruit.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns and seals in moisture during frying.
Lard
Conducts heat around the coating, driving browning and crispness.

The step that matters

Coat the bananas whole. Dipping and coating the bananas whole keeps their moisture inside. Cutting them first would let juice escape into the hot lard and make the coating soggy.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, bread. 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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