I don’t know about you but I didn’t get much work done last week because I was caught up with all the happenings of Guyana’s elections. As a result of this, I have a lot of work to catch up on this coming week so I have made a dish that stores easily in the refrigerator and one that I can eat for a few days – by itself or with a salad.
Ever since I discovered the pleasures of green bananas back in the early 90s, it has become an all-time favourite and something that I eat often. Green bananas are not simply un-ripe bananas, they are young bananas that would need to mature much more before they get to the stage where they are picked and set to ripen. They (green bananas) are more slender than fully grown bananas and the black stringy piece of bark is usually still attached to the bottom tip of the bananas.
To make this pie, you simply cook the bananas, mash them with milk, seasonings, and a few other ingredients and bake it in the oven. If you can’t get green bananas for this pie, good substitutes would be yams, sweet potatoes, Tania, and regular English potatoes. Breadfruit would work too.
Before I go into the actual recipe, let me tell you how to cook and peel the green bananas. Remove the top and bottom tips, rinse off the bananas well and add them to a pot, cover with water, add a couple tablespoons of oil, and bring to a boil, when the pot comes to a boil, squeeze the juice of a lime or lemon or 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. The oil will make cleaning the pot easy and the acid (lime, lemon juice, vinegar) will assist in not darkening the colour of the bananas when cooked.
Once cooked, drain well and when cool enough to handle, remove the skins. The bananas are done cooking when a knife inserts easily or the skin splits. Try to mash the cooked bananas while they are still hot.
INGREDIENTS
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1 cup finely chopped onions
- ¼ cup finely diced carrots
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped celery
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme
- Minced hot pepper to taste
- 12 – 14 green bananas, cooked and peeled
- 1 cup warm whole milk
- 3 tablespoons butter, salted or unsalted
- ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 pound boneless, salt fish, de-salted and shredded
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
- 2 tablespoons melted butter, salted or unsalted
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Butter or oil an 8 x 8 ovenproof dish and set aside.
- Heat oil and cook onions, carrots, celery, thyme, and pepper until softened. Do not let the mixture develop a colour. Set aside.
- Mash together the cooked bananas, milk, butter and nutmeg until smooth. Add sautéed onions etc. to the mashed bananas and mix in well.
- Add salt fish, mix in well and taste; add salt and pepper if necessary.
- Pour and mix in eggs then add all the ingredients to the prepared pan.
- Brush the top of the pie with melted butter and cook for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Cool dish on a wire rack for 30 minutes before cutting and serving.
