Maruya
Saba sliced and fanned out, dipped in batter and fried flat, then sugared.
Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (milk).
Ingredients
- 8 saba bananas, peeled
- 180 g plain flour
- 2 tablespoons caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 0.25 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 220 ml milk
- 100 g caster sugar, for dusting
- oil, for deep frying
Method
- SLICED AND FANNED, which is what makes this a maruya and not one of the six other banana pages here. Lay a peeled saba flat, slice it lengthways four or five times from within 2 cm of one end, then press it out into a fan with the flat of your hand. The fan fries flat and crisp all the way across; a whole banana in batter is soft in the middle.
- Use firm ripe saba. Soft ones will not hold a fan.
- Batter: flour, the 2 tablespoons of sugar, baking powder and salt whisked with the egg and milk to the thickness of double cream. Rest it 15 minutes.
- It should coat a fanned banana in a thin even film with the slices still visible through it. If it fills the gaps between the slices, thin it with a tablespoon of milk.
- Oil to 175C, in a wide pan so a fan can lie flat.
- Hold a fan by its uncut end, dip it, let the excess run off, and lay it into the oil. Two at a time at most.
- 2 to 3 minutes, turning once with a flat spoon, until deep gold and rigid. Keep them flat -- if one curls, press it down with the back of the spoon for a few seconds.
- Drain on a rack, then dust heavily with the remaining sugar while still hot.
- Eat within ten minutes. Like everything in batter, there is no version of this that keeps.
Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.
Filed under Philippines · All recipes