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Pisang Goreng (Banana Fritter)

Posting Date: 06/18/17

Pisang Goreng (Banana Fritter) is popular in Indonesia and eaten as snacks. Street vendors sell them and people eat it as is. Some vendors sometimes sprinkle it with salt on top. Pisang means banana and goreng means fried. The banana is fried in a batter like fritter. Over time, it evolved and some restaurants serve it as dessert with ice cream and chocolate syrup. Indonesians also have another banana dish, called pisang bakar, that is considered more as dessert. Instead of frying the banana in a batter, it is grilled with cheese and topped with powdered sugar, condensed milk, chocolate syrup, or chocolate sprinkles.

To make pisang goreng, do not use overly ripe banana since it will be too soft to handle and become even softer after frying it. However, do not use green banana either since it will be too bitter. The batter uses 2 tablespoons rice flour. Make sure you don't use glutinous rice flour since it is different than rice flour. If you cannot find rice flour, you can skip it and use all purpose flour instead. However, rice flour adds crispiness. There are some recipes that use egg in the batter. I use eggless batter since I read egg batter makes it soggy. I like my pisang goreng crispy. To make it crispy, ice cold water is used in the batter. You also need to fry it in a hot oil. So, don't overcrowd the pan when frying.

As mentioned, pisang goreng can be served as snack or dessert. You can have it with tea or coffee. As dessert, you can serve it topped with powdered sugar and chocolate syrup alongside of ice cream or whipped cream.

The recipe makes 16 pieces of banana fritters.

Ingredients:

For the batter: 3/4 cup all purpose flour
For the batter: 1/4 cup corn starch plus 1 tablespoon
For the batter: 2 tablespoon rice flour. Make sure you use rice flour and not glutinous rice flour since it is different. If you don't have rice flour, you can skip it and use all purpose flour instead.
For the batter: 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
For the batter: pinch of salt
For the batter: 1/4 teaspoon of sugar
For the batter: 200 ml ice cold water or more to achieve consistency of pancake batter
For the batter: 1.5 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 bananas, peeled. Make sure the bananas are not over ripe since it will be too soft to handle. However, make sure the bananas are not green either since it will be bitter.
For frying: vegetable oil
Optional: powdered sugar or confectioner sugar
Optional: ice cream
Optional: chocolate syrup
Optional: whipped cream

Methods:

Combine flour, corn starch, rice flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, ice water, and vegetable oil in a bowl. Whisk it so that it has the consistency of pancake batter. If the batter is too thick, add a little bit more of ice cold water.
Cut banana into half and cut each half lenghtwise. So, you will have 4 pieces/banana.
Place cooling rack on top of baking sheet.
Turn on the stove to medium high heat. Pour vegetable oil on a deep frying pan and place the pan on the stove. Make sure you have enough vegetable oil in the pan so that banana pieces will be immersed in the vegetable oil. Once the oil is hot, dip banana pieces in the batter and place them on the pan. Make sure you don't overcrowd the pan so that temperature will not drop when you fry bananas. You may need to fry banana pieces in batches depending on the size of your pan. Once all sides of banana piece are golden brown, take it out of the pan using slotted spoon to drain excess oil. Place it on top of the cooling rack on your baking sheet. You don't want to place fried banana on paper towel since it may stick to it. Repeat this step until all banana pieces have been fried.
You can serve them as snack or dessert. If you serve them as dessert, let them cool down first. You can then sprinkle powdered sugar and drizzle chocolate syrup on top and serve it alongside 1 or 2 scoops of ice cream or whipped cream.

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