Tropical Friday…Banana Flower…

Purple in colour, this heart-shaped male bud,  is commonly seen for sale on the markets in Asia where it is considered a vegetable.  It’s a very good source of fibre and has many medicinal values.

The banana bud/flower is the large purplish bud growing at the end of the banana stem. The mature bud often has hard husks on the outside.

After female banana flowers get pollinated, they form bananas. After bananas are produced, the male flower still remains at the tip of the bunch which is what is used in cooking. It is loaded with fibre, antioxidants, iron, potassium, calcium and other vitamins.

When the husks have been peeled away, the leaves in the middle can be used and eaten… They can be steamed whole and eaten with a spicy dip. It is also be used to make a salad…a stir fry added to curries or a soup is very popular here always loaded with lots of vegetables and herbs…delicious and nutritious.

Finely sliced It makes a healthy delicious stir fry...just peel off the outer leaves to get the tender middle…finely slice and wash carefully then sauteed the chopped parts of this veggie in olive oil, onions, ginger, garlic, and red pepper with a 1/4 tsp turmeric, a few curry leaves and a tsp of masala powder. then serve it on a bed of spinach with an egg on top…cooks quickly tastes delicious and is so nutritious.

Chopped and mixed with some sweetcorn, a little red curry paste some shredded kaffir lime leaves dipped in some tempura and fried these little patties are lovely with a sweet chilli sauce…add some to your tom yum soup…delicious.

For true authenticity serve on the outer flower bud leaves…it also saves washing a plate…

If you are about to buy some for cooking, you should make sure to choose the fresh ones which are tight and undamaged. The outer husks should be closely overlapped with each other for freshness purposes…anywhere where bananas grow you should find these flower buds for sale …Dried banana buds can be purchased in Asian stores around the world…

If you study the picture I took of my banana tree then you can see the intricacy of the structure this video is great for showing the banana flower in closeup and how it is used to make soup…Mark Weins is one of my favourite food bloggers I love watching his face as he tucks in to his food he certainly enjoys his food…I hope you enjoy the video…

Do you prepare the banana flower?  Is it used in your culture? Please let me know in the comments.

See you tomorrow for Saturday Snippets where my word of the day was suggested by Clive over at Take it Easy… where the music rocks…Thank you, Clive…If anyone else wants a mention just send me a word… xx

37 thoughts on “Tropical Friday…Banana Flower…”

  1. Pingback: Friday Food Review…Edible Flowers…Part 3…English Daisy, Japonica Flowers and Banana Flowers… | Retired? No one told me!

  3. Pingback: CarolCooks2 weekly roundup…September 5th-September 11th 2021…Culinary A-Z, Coconut Cookies, Ants, Neem Oil and Banana Flowers… | Retired? No one told me!

  5. Victoria Zigler

    We can get it in cans, labeled as “banana blossom” over here. I don’t buy it often, since most of the recipes I knew to do with it were to try and make it taste like fish (and I don’t like things tasting like fish) but I did make some banana blossom burgers once, and those were pretty tasty.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. petespringerauthor

    I immediately liked Mark after a couple of minutes of watching him enjoying the food. He’s so expressive and it feels so genuine. Fascinating process!

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Clive

    I’ve never heard of these, Carol – I’m guessing they are far from commonly available here! Thanks for the mention, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s post – I have a little bet with myself on whether I can guess a couple of tunes you might include 😉 x

    Liked by 3 people

  15. Pingback: Tropical Friday…Banana Flower… – MobsterTiger

Comments are closed.