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Bananas En Casserole
6 small bananas 1 glass currant or grape jelly 1 cup boiling water 1 lemon Peel the bananas. Remove the coarse threads and divide in quarters, cutting first crosswise and then lengthwise. Place in a greased casserole and pour over them a sauce made by melting the currant or grape jelly in the boiling water, and mixing with it the juice of a lemon. Cover the casserole and bake in a hot oven (400 degrees-450 degrees F.) until the bananas are tender. The cover may be removed at the last moment and the bananas sprinkled with granulated sugar and allowed to brown slightly. Serve as an entree with game, mutton, or beef.
A sweet-tart baked banana meant as an accompaniment to meat, not a dessert. It comes together in minutes and lives or dies on the ripeness of the fruit.
- Use firm, barely ripe bananasFruit that is still faintly green at the tip holds its shape through the oven. Anything fully spotted will collapse into puree in the hot sauce.
- "One glass" of jellyPeriod jelly glasses and tumblers ran roughly 6 to 8 fluid ounces, so somewhere in the neighbourhood of a cup. A modern 8-oz jar is close enough.
- The oven is genuinely hot400-450F as written is correct here. The high heat is what browns the sugar at the end and reduces the thin jelly sauce rather than merely warming it.
- TimingThe recipe gives no time. Covered, small quartered bananas should be tender in something like 15 to 20 minutes. Uncover near the end with the sugar so the surface glazes; watch it, since jelly and sugar scorch quickly at this temperature.
- "Casserole" hereA covered baking dish, typically earthenware or glass. Any lidded gratin dish, or a shallow baking dish with foil, will do.
- Cutting the fruitCutting crosswise then lengthwise gives four short batons per banana. The "coarse threads" are the phloem strands that cling to the peeled fruit; pull them off or they toughen slightly in baking.
- Grape versus currantRed currant jelly gives the sharper, more savory result the meat pairings call for. Grape is sweeter and will want the full lemon, possibly a little more.
- Yield and serviceSix small bananas serve six as a garnish beside game, mutton, or roast beef. "Entree" in this older menu usage did not mean the main plate; it was a dish served between or alongside the principal courses.