Another recipe for those banana lovers out there. It makes a great dessert or snack and keeps in a plastic bag tightly sealed for a week (give or take), making sure the bread is completely cooled down before storage. (This recipe was adapted from Chef John of Foodwishes.com)
Ingredients
3 ripe bananas
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped walnut (optional)
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips (optional)
How to prepare:
- Grease a loaf pan set aside and preheat oven to 165 degrees.
- Peel bananas mash and set aside.
- In a separate bowl add softened butter and sugar and beat together. Add eggs one at a time and vanilla, milk and mashed bananas and mix together.
- Swift flour baking powder, baking soda and salt into banana mixture and combine just until flour is mixed in (try not to over mix). Add in walnut and chocolate chips if using.
- Transfer the batter into greased loaf pan and tap on a flat surface to remove any air bubbles.
- Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, to check if it is ready stick a bamboo squawker into the centre if it comes out clean the bread is ready.
- Leave to cool for 5 - 10 minutes before removing from loaf pan.
- Enjoy your banana bread. Some people like it toasted, I just like mine either spread with Nutella or served with vanilla ice cream.
How to prepare:
- First thing I do is wash cabbage, carrots, spring onions and chicken breast. Shred the cabbage and finely slice the carrot, spring onions and the chicken (some people choose to mince chicken).
- In a large pot place shredded cabbage, add chicken stock and boil until cabbage is tender. Add sliced carrots and simmer until carrots are tender. Pour into a strainer to strain out liquid from vegetables and place aside.
- Into a large frying pan heat up a spoonful of vegetable oil, add the spring onions, grated garlic and ginger, fry for a little bit then add shredded chicken.
- Fry the chicken until the colour changes from pink to white add stock cube, soy sauce, all purpose seasoning and cayenne pepper. Taste for salt and add as needed.
- Now add the vegetables to the chicken mixture, mix well and stir fry for about a minute or two. Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely.
- To fold spring roll, first create the binder to seal the ends together, to do this combine flour and water and mix until there are no lumps.
- Lay out wrapper to look like a diamond, place a spoonful of vegetable filling near the bottom corner on the wrapper making sure not to over fill the sheet.
- Take the tip of the sheet under the line of vegetable mixture and fold over making sure to tuck in, fold in the sides and continue rolling, with a pastry brush or clean fingers spread "binder" on the last corner.
- Into a large frying pan place enough oil to deep fry spring rolls and heat up. Fry spring rolls until golden brown.
- Remove fried spring rolls and place on a paper towel to drain excess oil.
For a different taste after vegetables have cooled down add about 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise before rolling in wrappers. I usually make a lot of these and keep them in the freezer before frying they can last about a week all you have to do is defrost, fry and enjoy.
I recently visited Lagos Nigeria. The sights and sounds of the city were absolutely amazing and of course if you are ever in Nigeria one thing you definitely have to check out is the awesome food. When I say food I do not mean the fast food you get from the different restaurant (not disputing that these foods are not equally good in their own right), those are satisfying and I wouldn't be opposed to grabbing a meat pie or those delicious cream filled doughnuts from Sweet Sensation (memories).
And of course one of such restaurants which I remember visiting and loving is The Place, located on Isaac John Street, G.R.A, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria near Protea Hotel (I think they also have a branch on the island). If you are looking for a good place to have lunch with friends, this is the perfect restaurant. They not only sell the typical everyday Nigerian restaurant food like Jollof rice, Fried rice e.t.c, but they also provide unique dishes one of such that I remember was their Chinese prawn sauce. Absolutely yummy!!
They also have a delicious Africana menu which would leave you always wanting more and more every time.
But I am talking about traditional African menu. I am Yoruba, originally from Osun state, Ede, in Nigeria, and if you know any thing about us you know we love our amala (yam flour) and ila (lady fingers) stew, and although you can easily make these dishes anywhere in the world, it is never as good as that you get from Nigeria (in my opinion). So I met up with some friends in and they decided to take me out to a local buka (canteen) to eat amala, gbegiri and ewedu stew (yam flour, beans and jute leaf stew).
Now I do not remember exactly where this buka was located but I can never forget the experience. This is not your usual sit down and have a waitress come take your order type of restaurant, you have to get a plate go up to the servers and hustle for your own food. You say or rather shout out (there are so many people ordering at the same time you have to really hustle) the amount of amala you want choose the stew and the different types of meat that you want, this may seem like a hassle but it is well worth it trust me. After getting your food you carry your plate to your chosen seat, I really wish I had taken a picture of this meal because it was delicious, to enjoy this meal properly you have to use your hands. There is usually a pitcher of water and a bowl to wash your hands in right at the table and immediately you tuck in. Even writing about it now I remember that first bite it was absolutely delicious. One of the best eating experiences I had in Nigeria. A glass of cold water is all you need to accompany this meal.
After that day you can be sure I definitely went back to that buka to sample more delicacies.
The first recipe was inspired by a video I saw on YouTube, in that video they made use of plantains and bananas to achieve this decadent dessert. I have however put my own different spin on this recipe. Depending on the amount of people you are cooking for you can use more or less bananas.
Hope you give it a try.
Ingredients
2 Spring roll wrappers
2 Bananas
2 tsp Honey
50g Milk chocolate
Oil for frying
How to prepare:
- Peel the skin off the bananas and mash until they form a smooth paste.
- I folded my spring roll wrappers into quarters and cut to get four wrappers out of each single sheet.
-Place a thin of mashed banana on the bottom corner of one wrapper, roll about half way up fold the two sides and continue rolling. Finish up by sealing with some honey to keep the flap from opening.
-Put oil in a frying pan and heat. You want the oil just the right temperature, if it is too hot the banana rolls will cook too quickly and burn and if its too not hot enough they will be too soggy, I set mine to approximately 350°.
-Put banana rolls in hot oil (be careful) and fry both sides until golden brown about 4-5 minutes.
-Remove from the oil and place on a paper towel to remove the excess oil.
-You can serve the banana rolls like this with a Nutella or Peanut Butter I have done this and they are equally delicious I just decided to go a step further.
-Place the milk chocolate in a microwave proof bowl and microwave for 15 seconds, bring it out stir and put it back in the microwave at 10 second intervals stirring at the end of each interval until the chocolate is melted (be careful not to let the chocolate burn).
-Dip each of the banana rolls individually in melted chocolate. Place on a parchment paper for a few minutes to harden back up.
-Serve and enjoy. I dusted mine with powdered sugar.
This was absolutely delicious a definite must especially for lovers of bananas and chocolate (with this amount of bananas I made six banana rolls).
I know I know, been missing in action for a little while, well much longer than that. I have been busy with graduation, travelling amongst other things. I am finally settled down with more time to spend doing what I love (cooking) and writing about it. Truthfully though I have not felt much inspiration to cook lately, apart from the occasional meal here and there. But finally a couple of days ago I was at my local Asian food store doing the usual grocery shopping when I happened to look at the freezer section and I see this!
SPRING ROLL WRAPPERS
I bought a pack of these wrappers but had them sitting in my freezer for almost a week until I finally how exactly I would like to use them. So I made use of these wrappers in three different ways, I made Nigerian spring rolls, Nigerian samosa and for desert chocolate banana rolls. Yes that's right a triple threat, hope you like them and enjoy as much as I did.
