Eat, Pray, Love Party: Indonesia

Welcome to part 2 of my Eat, Pray, Love series. I'm going slightly out-of-order, here...the India post is not quite ready. So you can have Indonesia in the meantime. While it was easy to come up with Italian foods, being half Italian and having lived in Italy for just over a month, Indonesia was not so easy. I have no experience with Indonesian foods--I've never been there, and I have no friends who are from there, and there are no good Indonesian restaurants in my town. So I turned to good ol' Google. I kept coming across references to banana fritters eaten as a snack or dessert in Indonesia...and wouldn't you know it, trusty Allrecipes.com had a recipe! Actually, it had two, but true-to-form, I picked the one with alcohol in it. I have a reputation to uphold, here, people!


Pisang Goreng (Indonesian Banana Fritters, adapted from Allrecipes.com)

• 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbl. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbl. butter, melted
• 1 Tbl. rum
• 4 almost-ripe bananas, sliced
• Powdered sugar
  

Combine egg, milk, butter, and rum in a large bowl. Whisk until well-blended. Add flour and sugar, and whisk until incorporated. Fold sliced bananas into the batter.

Drop batter by tablespoon-full into 375-degree oil in a deep fryer or large saucepan. Deep-fry for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy. Remove to paper towels to drain. Dust with powdered sugar to serve.

These were so good! It's a good thing my deep fryer is a pain in the butt to clean, or else I would be using it much more frequently than is healthy for my waistline! It's amazing how little sugar the batter requires, yet these come out nice and sweet! It's important to use bananas that aren't quite ripe so that they are still a little firm and can hold their shape during the frying process. If the bananas are too ripe, they'll turn to mush! These would be good with cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on top, too!