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Banana Fritters
Peel the bananas, slice lengthwise through the middle, and, if large, divide once in length. Let the pieces lie for half an hour in lemon juice, then dip each one in the batter, and fry until a delicate brown. Drain, dust with powdered sugar, and serve as soon as possible.
A short, clear recipe that assumes you already have a frying batter to hand, as the surrounding pages in this section would have supplied. The two things it does not tell you are the batter and the fat temperature.
- The batterNone is specified here; a fritter batter was presumably given elsewhere in the book. A plain one of 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1 egg and about 2/3 cup milk, beaten smooth and rested 20 minutes, coats banana well without sliding off.
- Fat and temperatureDeep fry at 350-360F. Below that the batter drinks oil and the banana collapses; much above it and the outside colours before the inside heats through. Two to three minutes total gives the "delicate brown" asked for.
- Why the lemon juiceThe half-hour soak keeps the cut surfaces from browning and offsets the sweetness. The recipe specifies half an hour; there is no reason to extend it.
- Choosing the fruitUse bananas that are ripe but still firm, with no brown flecking through the flesh. Overripe fruit turns to purée inside the shell of batter.
- Dry before dippingBlot the lemon juice off with a cloth or paper before the batter goes on. Wet fruit sheds its coating in the fat and spatters.
- ServingDust the sugar on after a minute of draining, while the fritters are hot but no longer glossy with fat. Note that 'powdered sugar' in books of this period usually means sugar ground finer than granulated rather than today's confectioners' sugar. No quantities are given, but the fritters must go to the table at once, as the recipe insists.