Banana
A soft, sweet tropical fruit that grows in hanging bunches. Many varieties exist, from small sweet ones to starchy cooking bananas eaten boiled or roasted.
14-QWSTION-BANANATEX-STRIPPING-LAUSCHSICHT: BANANATEX, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)
Where it comes from
Bananas were first grown in Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea thousands of years ago and spread across the tropics. In Papua New Guinea they are a staple, eaten sweet or cooked as a starchy food.
Explore the cuisine of Papua New Guinea, Ecuador.
Nutrition: Good source of potassium and vitamin B6.
Fruit guide
Enjoying Banana
Ways to enjoy it
- Eaten fresh
- Sliced on cereal and yogurt
- Baked into bread and muffins
- Fried or grilled with sugar
- Blended in smoothies
- Cooking bananas boiled or roasted with savory dishes
How to choose, prepare and store
- Choose bananas with firm, unbruised skins; yellow with a few flecks is ripe.
- Ripen green bananas at room temperature in a paper bag.
- Peel from the stem end and remove any strings.
- Slice for eating or mash for baking.
- For cooking bananas, boil or roast in the skin until soft.
- Store ripe bananas in the fridge to slow browning (the skin darkens but the fruit stays fine).
Variations
- Fried banana (pisang goreng)
- Banana pancakes
- Boiled green bananas
Cook’s tip: Freeze overripe bananas for smoothies and baking.
Also on the menu in
- American Samoa
- Angola
- Brunei
- Burundi
- Cape Verde
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Cook Islands
- Djibouti
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Fiji
- French Polynesia
- Guam
- Guinea
- Indonesia
- Ivory Coast
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Laos
Related dishes
About this page
Description and method written by Intercontinental Chef. Home-style method; quantities are a starting point, so adjust to taste.
Photo credit
- 14-QWSTION-BANANATEX-STRIPPING-LAUSCHSICHT: BANANATEX, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)