Tumis Jantung Pisang (Banana Flower Stir Fry)
If there is one ingredient that we never skip in our every wet market visit cycle, it is the banana flower. There is this one specific banana flower dish my mother occasionally makes at home — and the dish, vice versa, reminds me of her. It was actually a traditional dish where my parents came from. It’s called Mangge Mada in Bima language which Mangge means tamarind while Mada means eye — but combined it actually refers to Gulai Jantung Pisang (Banana Flower in a Curry-like sauce). However that’s not the actual dish that we’re featuring today. Its not that the recipe is difficult or time consuming to make — but simply because it contains shrimps which Dito was not a big fan of it.
Thus we tried to improvise by using probably the second simplest and easiest way of cooking after boiling - stir fry. We pretty much add all basic ingredients we normally use for our veggies stir fry. We have a quite good feeling about it but little did we know we ended up liking it so much it now became one of those menus on heavy rotation among our meal plans.
You will see that the recipe is relatively straightforward, there are some steps to it but compared to other dishes we make this one is quite efficient. Not sure how common it is to have a dish based on banana flower in your neck of the woods but if you have the chance please give it a go as it’s very delicious!
Ingredients:
2 small size banana flower
20 gram small dried ancovhy (teri medan)
3 shallots
3 garlics
1 red chilli pepper
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp sugar
Mushroom stock (optional)
Salt and pepper
Water
Cooking oil
Ingredients:
Peel the outer layers of banana flower until you find the white-ish layer. Cut the banana flower into half and rub the inner surface with coarse salt to get rid of the sap.
Bring a medium pot to the boil for the banana flower. Once boiling, carefully add banana flower. Let it cooked until it gets tender.
When the banana flower is cooked nicely, take it out and place in the chopping block. Cut into square-ish. Put aside.
On heating pan, add 1 table spoon cooking oil. Toss small dried achovy and cook it until it gets brown. Transfer to small plate.
On the same pan, add shallot and garlic. Stir regularly and once it starts to whiter, add chilli.
When the shallot and garlic start to brown, add banana flower into the pan. Stir it for 1-1,5 minutes before adding some water. You just need a little bit of water so it prevents from burning.
Add oyster sauce and season with sugar, mushroom stock, salt, and pepper. Mind the salt as we will add dried achovy at the end as it is already on salty side.
Continue to cook until the water reduces. Lastly, add dried anchovy and mix it well.
