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Dessert

Fried Bananas

Fried bananas served with a lemon‑sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fried Bananas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bananas

  1. Slice bananas into ½ inch thick pieces.

  2. Dip the banana slices in white sugar.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the bananas in a little butter until light brown.

  2. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar, lemon juice, and water.

  3. Boil the mixture until thick.

  4. Serve the hot syrup over the fried bananas.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 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 flavor, softening and browning when fried.
White sugar
Coats the banana slices, sweetening them and helping them caramelize and brown in the butter.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the bananas.
Sugar for syrup
Dissolves and thickens with the water and lemon juice to form the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps keep the syrup balanced.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar syrup thickens as water evaporates and concentrates. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long can make it stiff or scorch once it cools.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, syrup, lemon. 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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