No. 3023

Crusts with Bananas a la Panama

Croutes aux Bananes a la Panama

Slice some brioche three-quarters of an inch thick, and from them remove a dozen rounds with a two and a quarter inch diameter pastry cutter; cut them all around a short distance from the edges and empty out the insides; lay them on a baking sheet, besprinkle with sugar and glaze in a quick oven; after they come from the oven cover the insides with guava jelly softened with a little maraschino. Peel six fine very ripe bananas, cut them across in slices an eighth of an inch thick, and plunge into a hot syrup of twenty-five degrees, flavored with maraschino, leaving them in for five minutes only, then drain and dress dome-shaped on the crusts, covering over with very hot apricot marmalade (No. 3675); dredge with fresh finely chopped pistachios and dress in a circle on a dish; fill the inside of this with pineapple cut in quarter-inch squares, thrown into the syrup in which the bananas were cooked, then brought to a boil, and mingled with some guava jelly diluted with syrup and flavored with maraschino, serving separately a hot sauce made with apricot marmalade, grated pineapple and maraschino.

← No. 3022 Crusts of Pineapple, Apricot Sauce Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3024 Crusts with Cherries or Strawberries a la Mi →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's assembly dish rather than a cooked one: the work is in the brioche cases and the glazes, and everything comes together at the last minute.

The hinge: assemble to orderSliced bananas held five minutes in hot syrup are on the edge of collapse, and the glazed brioche softens as soon as the jelly goes in. Build the croûtes and dress them within a few minutes of serving; the components can all be ready in advance.
"Quick oven"Conventionally read as somewhere around 400-450F. The sugared brioche rounds only need long enough to caramelise the surface, a few minutes, and they scorch quickly at that heat.
Syrup of twenty-five degreesDegrees Baume, the pastry standard of the period: about 46 percent sugar by weight, a little lighter than equal weights of sugar and water. Anything much heavier will candy the banana edges.
MaraschinoThe dry clear cherry liqueur of the Luxardo type, not the sweet red syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. It is used four times here and carries the whole dish.
Guava jellyStill sold in Latin and Caribbean groceries as jalea de guayaba, in jars or as the firmer paste. If using paste, melt it with a spoonful of syrup before adding the maraschino.
Apricot marmalade, No. 3675Ranhofer's cross-reference is to his own apricot marmalade, in effect a sieved apricot glaze. Warmed apricot jam pushed through a strainer, loosened with a little syrup, does the same job; it must be very hot when it goes over the fruit or it sets in ropes.
Cutting the casesBrioche three-quarters of an inch thick and a 2¼-inch cutter give shallow cups. Score inside the rim with a smaller cutter or a knife point and lift the centre out with a teaspoon, leaving a floor so the jelly does not leak.
YieldTwelve croûtes from six bananas, so six to twelve servings depending on whether you count two apiece. The pineapple mixture goes in the centre of the ring and the apricot-pineapple sauce is passed hot in a separate boat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer put The Epicurean together in 1894 out of thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this is a dish of its moment: bananas were arriving green by steamship from Central America and the Caribbean, increasingly common in American cities if still somewhat special, and the fruit trade that would become United Fruit was then building its routes through Panama and Costa Rica. The name is often read as a nod to that traffic rather than to any Panamanian cooking — guava jelly, pineapple, banana and maraschino make up a chef's idea of the tropics, plated on French brioche. Ranhofer's kitchen worked this way throughout the fruit chapters: a hollowed pastry case, a jelly lining, a fruit dome and a hot glaze, the same architecture reused with cherries, strawberries or pineapple in the recipes on either side of this one.