Bananas are beautiful plants, producing a beautiful fruit. Not a true tree, their stems instead, are leaves, packed tight together.
The magenta hanging flowers are huge and bell shaped. The bananas grow within this magenta outer flower until they become a huge bunch of hanging green hands, growing in a spiral pattern down the stem. The magenta flower can also be eaten, it’s delicious sliced finely into a Vietnamese coleslaw.
Gardening Australia explains that bananas have been cultivated so long, “they’ve lost the ability to reproduce by seed, they need gardeners to survive”.
Bananas are available in Australia all year round – unless disaster strikes. Cyclone Yasi which hit in 2011, caused a major shortage of bananas and exorbitant prices – but in spring, they’re at their best.
Banana ripening is an intensely controlled process, picked green, bananas are stacked into huge ripening rooms and kept at just the right temperature and then a gas, ethylene is introduced; a gas the bananas naturally give off as they ripen. When you put a banana in a paper bag with an unripe avocado, this is what you’re doing, letting the ethylene do its work.
I think bananas are best eaten just as they turn towards the brown. An unripe banana can be chalky, especially the ladyfinger bananas that are pictured here. For this recipe the bananas need to be tending towards brown. A yellow banana will produce a starchier ice-cream, so make sure your bananas are sweet and beautifully ripe.
Soft banana ice-cream
4 ripe bananas, peeled, sliced thinly and frozen
1 ripe banana, sliced
2 tsp shredded coconut, toasted lightly
2 tbsp pepitas, toasted lightly
2 tbsp cocoa nibs
In a small bowl mix your coconut, pepitas and cocoa nibs together. Put your frozen and fresh, ripe bananas in the food processor and whizz them together. The bananas should start to form a dough-like ball. But if not, stop the processor and with a spoon press the banana mix together. The bananas mixture will make a surprisingly creamy ice cream – without any cream.
To serve
Make sure you serve the ice-cream immediately, scooping it into balls. Sprinkling each serve of ice-cream with the coconut mixture.
Makes enough for four.
