Going bananas. Indian Banana and Paneer Kofte

Northeast 5 or 6, decreasing 4 later.

Slight or moderate.

Occasional drizzle at first.

Good, occasionally poor at first.

"I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say - Bananas have to ripen in a certain way - When they are fleck'd with brown and have a golden hue - Bananas taste the best and are best for you - You can put them in a salad - You can put them in a pie-aye - Any way you want to eat them - It's impossible to beat them - But, bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator - So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator."

Song by Patti Clayton 1944, the first Chiquita jingle, which you can listen to here.

But I always liked the German take of the song: “Yes! We Have No Bananas” from the hilarious movie Billy Wilder movie “One, two three” (if you don’t know it, watch it, it is full of political references and really funny)

We don’t tend to eat green bananas within a savoury dish in this country; but it is actually quite popular in many cultures. And I don’t mean plantains, I am talking about your humble unripe banana. The following dish can be adjusted to taste: make it quite mild and you can sneak bananas into your child, make it really spicy to go with beer, put it into your favourite curry sauce (I only made them today because I found a pouch of the Holy Cow Delhi Tikka Masala Sauce in my fridge which was 3 weeks past its sell-by-date and I wanted to use it up), or, and this is particular useful for picnics, just eat them as they are with maybe a Raita or Chutney dip.

The original recipe is from the wonderful Sailu, a “must book-mark” blog if you love Indian food.  She makes it pretty spicy (which I did not want today) and used Amchur which I did not have. But in order to introduce a bit of the complex sour note, I boiled one dried Iranian lime in the water. I personally don’t think that tamarind alone would work (if you have neither Amchur nor a dried lime), so maybe use lemon zest. Of course you can substitute the other spices too.

Green Bananas and Paneer kofte

2 green bananas

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 dried Iranian lime (optional)

80gr Paneer

2 spring onions

1tbsp chickpea flour (Besan or Gram)

½ tsp (each) of coriander seeds, cumin seeds and dried fenugreek leaves (Methi)

1 tbsp fresh Coriander leaves (optional)

Salt to taste

Oil - for deep frying koftas

Do not peel the skin of the bananas. Cut the ends off and cut each banana into two pieces. Boil them in ½ litre of water along with the turmeric and the dried lime for about 20 minutes on low to medium flame.  Remove from water and put onto a kitchen paper.  Once they are cool, skin them and grate them on your finest grater.

In the meantime heat the spices (no oil) in a pan until fragrant. Remove from heat and pound them in a pestle and mortar to fine powder.

Grate Paneer and the spring onions (white part only) on the same grater as the bananas, mix into bananas. Add spices, salt, finely chopped coriander leaves and gram flour.

Roll the mixture into small balls (about 8), use a bit more gram flour if necessary, but the above should be fine for medium sized bananas.

Heat oil in a pan and fry the koftas on a low temperature until nice and golden.

If you want to serve them with a sauce, make or reheat any Indian style sauce, and add the koftas for 5 minutes. Serve with rice.

Or just snack on them with some chutney; however you might want to put them for another 10 minutes in a preheated oven since they wont be cooked through yet. Not that it really matters since the bananas have already cooked, but depending on the amount of gram used, you might get a bit of a raw floury taste.

Oh, and if you happen to have an overripe banana, just pop it as it is in the freezer and come back in a few days for a lovely chocolate banana dessert recipe.

Verdict:

I must say that I am not a fan of ready- made sauces and purchased this only because it was on “flash sale”. But holy cow, that Holy Cow brand is good! If I would still eat chicken that would be my favourite ready- in- 12- minutes dish. Just fry some chicken breast and pour sauce over it and let cook for 10 minutes.

But it does not serve 2-3. It serves one single greedy gourmet.

And the koftas work like a dream with it! Maybe next time I add some cashews for a bit of “bite”