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Baked Banana Salad
A large variety of salads can be prepared from this very common fruit. Peel the banana, and roll lightly in sugar, place in a granite baking-pan, and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Serve with a sour fruit juice thickened to the consistency of cream by adding a little flour rubbed smooth with a small amount of butter.
A simple baked-fruit salad from the era when "salad" covered any cold or warm dressed dish, fruit included. The only technical point is the dressing, which is a small roux-thickened fruit sauce.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F by later conventions. Twenty minutes at that heat will soften a ripe banana thoroughly; a very ripe one may collapse in fifteen, so check at that point.
- Granite baking-pan"Granite" or graniteware means speckled enamelled steel. Enamel does not react with fruit acid, though the recipe itself gives no reason for the choice. Any glass, ceramic or enamelled dish serves the same purpose; avoid bare aluminium or cast iron with the acidic sauce.
- Choose firm fruitBananas just past green hold their shape in the oven. Heavily spotted fruit turns to puree, which is fine as a sauce but will not slice for a salad plate.
- The sour fruit juiceLemon, lime, sour orange, currant, cranberry or tart apple juice all fit the description. Figure about a cup of juice for four bananas, sweetened to taste, since the fruit itself carries little acid.
- Thickening the dressingThe flour rubbed into butter is a beurre manié. Whisk it into the simmering juice in small pieces, adding more until it thickens, and cook two or three minutes so the raw flour taste goes; "consistency of cream" means pourable, not gluey.
- ServingOne banana per person, split lengthwise, with the warm dressing spooned over and a lettuce leaf or shredded lettuce beneath if you want it to read as a salad course. Dress it just before it goes to the table, as baked banana darkens on standing.