baked bananas with passion fruit and minty creme fraiche

This recipe is taken from ‘The 30 minute cook’ by Nigel Slater, who is one of the cook book writers I regularly refer back to, and his books are the ones that I regularly cook from.

His food is real.  No wonder he called his first book ‘Real fast food’ and a later book just ‘Real food’.

In the 30 Minute cook, he has compiled an eclectic mix of recipes from Europe, Asia, north Africa and the Middle East. I find them inspiring, accessible and downright tasty.

And, like all good cook books it includes some stunning close up ‘food porn’ images that always has the food as the hero and are high on the drool factor.

Now bananas are a polarising fruit, you either love them or you hate them. I have three good friends who loath them with such a passion, they consider it torturous to be anywhere near a peeled one, let alone be in the same room. I suspect its a textural thing that causes this adverse reaction, followed by the smell and then the taste.

I fall into the former category and am very fond of this fruit. It’s character and texture change when baked which is why I love this recipe.

What you will need to make per portion, extrapolate up as required:

• 1 banana
• a drizzle of honey
• juice of half an orange
• 1 passion fruit / granadilla
• creme fraiche and finely chopped fresh mint

*Nigel also included a little lemon juice, but I find it acidic enough with the orange juice and the passion fruit

How to make: (and so very simple it is)

• pre heat the oven to 180 C
• place each banana in a piece of foil or baking paper and fold up the sides to make a ‘boat’
• drizzle over the honey, add the orange juice and half of the pulp of the granadilla (reserving the other half for later)
• fold and seal each foil pouch and place on a baking tray and bake forfor 15 minutes (his instructions are 20 minutes at 200C, but when I tried this it annihilated the banana to a mound of hot mush)
• you can either serve the hot pouches sealed to each person as he suggests, handing out the remaining half a passion fruit to be scooped over as it is opened. Alternatively serve out the pouch and in a dish with the minty creme fraiche on the side.

The smell of this dessert as you open the pouch is indeed exquisite and its flavour is intense and tropical.

I made this for my friend Lori who suggested it needed some creme fraiche and mint to compliment the acidity and sweetness. What a beautiful accompaniment it was.

These parcels could be cooked on a braai (barbeque), making a very low maintenance dessert and ideal for camping.

*PS: Kim, Mands and Laurence (and any of you other banana haters out there), this recipe is not for you.