Kluai buat chi

Bananas poached briefly in salted coconut milk, where the salt is as important as the sugar.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 6 bananas, slightly underripe
• 500 ml coconut milk
• 80 g palm sugar
• 0.75 teaspoon salt
• 1 pandan leaf, knotted

Method

1. THE SALT IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE SUGAR, and three quarters of a teaspoon in a dessert looks wrong written down. Without it this is sweet coconut milk with banana in it; with it the coconut tastes of coconut and the sweetness has an edge to push against.
2. Use bananas with green still at the tips. Fully ripe ones dissolve in four minutes and the pan becomes a purée.
3. Peel and cut them into 4 cm lengths, or halve them lengthways and then across.
4. Coconut milk, palm sugar, salt and pandan in a wide pan. Warm gently until the sugar dissolves, stirring.
5. DO NOT BOIL IT at any point. Coconut milk held at a bare shiver stays white and smooth; boiled, it splits into oil and grains and cannot be brought back.
6. Bananas in, in a single layer. 5 to 7 minutes, turning them once with a spoon.
7. They are ready when a skewer meets no resistance but the pieces still hold their edges. They continue softening off the heat.
8. Pandan out. Rest 10 minutes before serving so the milk thickens slightly and the bananas take it up.
9. Good warm, and good cold the next day, when it sets to something closer to a custard.

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 Thailand · All recipes