Yields:
2 Servings
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 20 Mins
Cook Time:
10 Mins
Total Time:
30 Mins
This Thai-inspired banana blossom salad is the perfect balance of sweet, spicy, sour and salty. Banana blossom salad also looks outstanding when plated, and all your friends will be like, oh my gawd!
Banana blossom is one of the most unique and confounding ingredients I’ve come across. Why would you harvest the blossom of the banana when you could have hundreds of bananas instead? It is also a bit of a pain in the ass to prepare. However, its special texture and flavour, and extremely cheap price tag (here in the Philippines), makes it a definite candidate for pantry selection.
If you are new to fresh banana blossoms, Vegan Miam has a very thorough guide on preparation.
Enjoying banana blossom? Check out this Indonesian Banana Blossom Curry!
Ingredients
Adjust Servings
Instructions
- Prepare your banana blossom, preserving one nice bract (the hard petal) for a serving plate later. Slice the banana blossom heart and peel as many baby banana florets as you can before descending into the madness. All prepared banana blossom parts should be immediately immersed in a basin of cool water with vinegar or lemon juice to prevent them from going black and bitter.
-
Mince the kaffir lime leaf, chop the chilli and spring onions. Finely slice the shallots.
- Fry the minced seitan in ½ tbsp of oil in a non-stick pan until cooked and brown. Remove and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, place the kaffir lime leaf, chillies, calamansi juice, muscovado sugar, soy sauce, and ⅓ of the raw shallots.
- Fry the remaining ⅔ of the shallots in ½ tbsp of oil until cooked and sweet but not crispy. Remove and set aside.
- Add the banana blossom and minced seitan into the mixing bowl and mix well. Then add the cooked shallots and spring onions and mix well. Taste, and add more lime juice, sugar, and soy sauce to taste. It should be a perfect balance of sweet, spicy, sour and salty.
-
It is SO good.
