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.

Ways to Eat a Bamboo (Recipes)

Having made a simple post about an easy tutorial of how to make a cannon from a bamboo a few days ago, I began to think that writing about how to make a meal from it would be interesting as well. So this post is all about how to make a cuisine from a bamboo, or exactly from its sprout, or what people call a bamboo shoot. 

For those who live in the western world, bamboo shoots may be something new, but not so in Asia, especially in Indonesia. These young bamboo culms are fairly well-known and often used as cooking main materials in Asian cuisines. What is more, they contain protein, carbohydrates, fiber, and a very high amount of potassium which is very beneficial to prevent and lower stroke risk, while their taste is not inferior to the conventional vegetables'. Those make bamboo shoots a special and unique cuisine with a distinctive aroma. This paper will present the ways to enjoy bamboo shoots, as scrumptious meals and as a snack.

1. Sauteed bamboo shoot

 

Ingredients:

300 grams of peeled bamboo shoots 
salt (suit your taste)
flavoring
pepper
4 onions
2 garlic cloves
1 red chili
1 bird’s eye chili
4 tablespoons of cooking oil
½ cup of water

How to make it:

1) Cut the raw bamboo shoots into thin pieces then soak them for one night in the water to remove the sap remnants and its bitterness.

2) Boil the bamboo shoots for 10 minutes, remove then drain them.

3) Slice onions, garlic cloves, red chili, and bird’s eye chili.

4) Heat 4 tablespoons of cooking oil in the frying pan, then put the slices of onions, garlics, red chili, and bird’s eye chili in the pan. Stir until the aroma smells good.

5) Put the boiled bamboo shoots pieces and ½ cup of water in the pan.

6) Once the water in the pan boils, add salt, pepper, and flavoring to the dish in the pan.

7) To increase the flavor, you may add dried shrimps or some tofus. Put them in when the dish is almost cooked.

8) Stir the dish, wait until the spices permeate (the water in the pan is reduced).

9) Remove the dish from the pan. A delicious meal is now ready to be served.

2. Bamboo shoot soup

 

Ingredients:

300 grams of peeled bamboo shoots
250 grams of beef
salt
½ teaspoon of sugar
flavoring
3 cm of galangal
2 garlic cloves
7 onions
2 candlenuts
1 tomato
1000 ml of coconut milk
4 salam leaves (Indonesian bay leaf)
2 lemongrass leaves
5 tablespoons of cooking oil

How to make it:

1) Cut the raw bamboo shoots into thin pieces then soak them for one night in the water to remove the sap remnants and its bitterness.

2) Boil the bamboo shoots for 10 minutes, remove then drain them.

3) Pound the galangal, 2 garlic cloves, 4 onions, 2 candlenuts, and 1 tomato, then fry them with 3 tablespoons of cooking oil in the pan until the aroma smells good.

4) Put the coconut milk, salam leaves, and lemongrass leaves in the pan. Slowly stir so that the coconut milk is not broken.

5) When the water almost boils, put the beef in the pan then leave it for some minutes.

4) Once the beef is almost cooked, add the sliced bamboo shoots, salt, ½ teaspoon of sugar,and flavoring. After a moment, remove the dish from the pan.

5) To increase the aroma, sprinkle fried onions over the dish--slice 3 onions then fry the slices using 2 tablespoons of oil. The dish now is ready to serve.

3.  Bamboo shoot chips

 

Ingredients:

1 kg of peeled bamboo shoots
1 tablespoon of salt
1 kg of cooking oil
1 ounce of butter
4 garlic cloves
flavoring
water

How to make it:

1) Cut the raw bamboo shoots into some pieces then soak them for one night in the water to remove the sap remnants and its bitterness.

2) Boil the bamboo shoots for 10 to 15 minutes, remove then drain them.

3) Slice the boiled bamboo shoot into thin round pieces.

4) Pound garlic cloves together with salt and flavoring. Add water then put the bamboo shoot slices into the mixture.

5) Put the sliced bamboo shoots under the scorching sun until they are not too wet.

6) Put the cooking oil in a frying pan along with the butter.

7) Gently fry the thin pieces of bamboo shoots, then slowly turn them over.

8) Once they are cooked (when the chips color turns yellow and the chips are floating), remove them from the pan and let cool.

Those are the easy recipes of bamboo shoots. For more interesting cuisines, these recipes can be modified by adding several kinds of materials or ingredients into the recipes above. Happy cooking.