Why and How to Eat a Banana Flower

A Hanging Banana Flower

Consuming vegetables and fruits respectably gives immense advantages to our bodies. Precisely, besides rich in nutrients, they are the sources of antioxidants needed to maintain a healthy body. Among the wide variety of vegetables, there is one type of vegetables that many people think it cannot be consumed, many of us do not even think it is a vegetable. Banana flower, also called banana inflorescence, a fleshy cone-shaped stalk that comes out from the center of the banana terminal stem, is a little part of a banana tree which goes unnoticed by most. The fact that it can be processed into a very tasty and delicious food is hardly recognized.


Scientists have confirmed that bananas provide a high level of energy and contain natural sugars that are healthier and more effective than energy drinks. What about the flower? According to the study, identical to bananas, a banana flower is nutrient-rich as well as good for preventing and treating various diseases.  Besides being very safe for diabetics, it is beneficial for digestion since it contains a high amount of fiber, good to improve brain power, good for heart health, and help to treat a stroke if consumed regularly. However, not all types of banana flowers can be consumed, only certain types of them such as musa textilia, musa balbisiana colla, musa acuminata balbisiana, and musa paradisiaca forma typica. Most of those beyond these types are bitter and taste bad.

For those of you who own a banana tree with a kind of the mentioned, do not waste the flower when the tree bears fruit, it is better to process it into some kind of a special delicious dish. As for the examples of the cuisines made from a banana flower are: banana flower soup, banana flower nuggets, banana flower curry, sweet and sour banana flower, and so on.  Being tasty and tender as meat make it suited to be served for lunch or dinner. One easy food recipe made from Banana Flower is as follows:

Banana Flower Soup

 

Ingredients:

• 1 banana flower
• salt (suit your taste)
• ¼ tablespoon of sugar
• 1 riped tomato
• 5 garlic cloves
• 5 onions
• 3 chillies
• 3 cm of turmeric
• 2 candlenuts
• flavoring
• ½ liter of coconut milk
• water
• cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons of lime water
• 1 stalk of lemongrass
•  5 basil leaves
• 3 cm of galangal

How to Make:

1. Remove the outer parts of banana flower then take the reddish 

    white  inner part of it.
2. Wash it until completely clean and no sap left, then boil it about 

    5 minutes.
3. Slice the banana flower into small pieces.
4. Pound tomatoes, garlic cloves, candlenuts, onions, chillies, and 

    turmeric.
5. Fry the pounded ingredients in the pan with cooking oil until 

    smells good.
6. Put the sliced banana flower into the pan. Stir until it mixes well 

    with the ingredients.
7. Put coconut milk little by little into the pan and stir gently so the 

    coconut milk is not broken.
8. Thump lemongrass and galangal then put them into the dish 

    along with lime water, give it a salt, 

     stir once more .
9. When cooked. Remove the dish and sprinkle basil leaves to add 

     the flavor and the aroma. Serve it  

     while still warm.