Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Have you ever seen one of these?

When I went to the farmer's market Saturday morning I only needed a couple of things. Tomatoes, onions, and some garlic. I paid for my things and then went over to the bakery and got some sweet treats for the girls and I. On my way back the biggest banana type thing I had ever seen caught my eye. Have you ever seen this before?


Apparently it is a Hawaiian Plantain. I took a picture of it in my hand so that there was some perspective on the size of this.

Guess what? It was delicious! It was so sweet and mild tasting and the flesh was a slight peachy color. I bought 2 of them and they were gone that day.

They can be treated the same as regular plantains as in cooked. But when these ones are nice and ripe like the one in my hand they are perfect for eating just out of the peel! I was also thinking that they would make a nice quick bread. I think they would give some banana bread some nice chunks in it!

I will definitely be keeping an eye out for these!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

16 comments:

Laura Paterson said...

wow - how unusual!

You can't usually eat plantain raw, right? I'd definitely be interested in trying these :)

eatingclubvancouver_js said...

I think these are the kind that we used to eat as "banana-ques" (similar to kamote-ques). These are also the kind of plantains that we used to make our fried banana spring rolls (turon) and other kinds of desserts. I miss these! We bought a bunch that looked like these fat plantains (from Thailand) but they aren't the same. We tried boiling them for a dessert and they tasted like nothing.

Mike of Mike's Table said...

Those are gigantic! I've never seen one so fat

Anonymous said...

Wow, what an amazing thing!! It sure looks delicious... :)

The Hungry Mouse said...

Holy cow! Errr, plantain. I'm going to see if I can find one of those here in Boston. Thanks for sharing!

+Jessie
The Hungry Mouse

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

Hi kittie-I didn't think you could but this was great raw!

Hi Eating club-These tasted soooo good.

Hey Mike-Me neither!

Hey junglefrog-I love exotic fruit!

Hi jessie-I hope you can find one!

Hal B said...

Very cool. Never know what you're going to find at the market!

Cathy - wheresmydamnanswer said...

Nope never seen anything like this one before - will keep a look out.

Melissa said...

I've never seen these, but lucky you for discovering something new to you. Always a lovely surprise. I'll look for them next time out as well.

Anonymous said...

*BIG smile here* - my grandfather grew those on his plot in Hawaii. We had banana fritters for what it seemed all of the time! (cheap way to feed the grandkids) On top of that, there were always friends or relatives literally shoving the plantains at us. "Here! Take these I've got too much!"

Hope I'll get to eat some on my visit back home!

Anonymous said...

How cool is that?! I didn't know that plantains could be eaten raw. They do look like a giant banana. lol

Sparkling said...

Wow! Just wow!

I thought plantains of this sizes had to be cooked and my mom did an awesome job out of it (in typical Indian style - with coconut and spices) but to find it ripe enough to eat them raw is a first :)

I'll need to chk them out here.

Ela said...

wow. i won't need 2 bananas for my banana cue. ha ha ha.

Judy@nofearentertaining said...

Hi Hal B-You never know what you will find!!!

Hi Cathy-Isn't fun to see and find new things?

Hi Melissa-It was very lucky!

Hi rowena-I'm so glad it brought back a happy memory for you!

Hi Still thinking-I thought they had to be cooked too so I was a little skeptical on my first taste. But they were delicious!

Hi everything's herbed-no you won't!

Salt N Turmeric said...

Judy, I love plantain! I usually use it to make deep fried banana or my favourite dessert (which also happens to be my very first recipe post in my blog) where you cut it, dip into whisked egg, deep fry and drenched in sugar syrup. But the plantain must be riped. ;)

taste memory said...

gorgeous + yummy looking ~ what is there not to love about these....ooh especially grilled w. chocolate!