During the initial lockdown in 2020 I played around with a lot of wasted food items, from carrot tops to leek tops, onion skins and swiss chard stalks. I wanted to test as many options as possible, establish limits and how long it takes to breakdown when cooked to an acceptable product. Not everything was successful, I failed many times making vegetarian burgers using scraps as in my mind it made sense making it into a patty where it would be easy to hide an unwanted item. One of the more successful experiments was using banana skin, I made banana skin bacon, savoury banana skin mince, savoury fried balls and even smoked pulled banana skin. It must be said that this is not going to impress everyone as banana has a very strong flavour and so doe its skin.
Banana skin curry is not a new recipe and many versions are available. I found that if the curry was left for a day to infuse it developed nicely soaking up all the flavours and spices. We collect the skins at home in the freezer for later use.
Spicy with a hint of sour sweetness, change it up by using chickpeas instead of the peanuts
I have added a spoonful of peanut butter before and that makes it even more nutty.
Banana Skin & Peanut Curry
Prep Time: 30min
Cooking Time: 60min
Serving: 4
Ingredients
4 banana skins cut into small pieces about 1cm x 1cm
½ – 1 cup peanut
¼ cup red lentils
20 ml coconut oil
1-2 Tomatoes grated
2 tsp Curry powder
¼ tsp Cumin seeds
¼ tsp Coriander seeds
¼ tsp Mustard seeds
¼ tsp Fenugreek (optional)
2 ea cardamom pods (optional)
4 ea green chili sliced
3 small red chilies
1-2 cloves garlic crushed
1 tsp chopped or grated ginger
10 – 12 curry leaves
1 tbsp chopped mint and coriander
juice from one lemon or 25ml tamarind
1 tsp grated palm sugar or brown sugar
130ml coconut milk
water as needed
salt
pepper
Method
1. Toast all the dry seeds and spices
2. Add coconut oil
3. Add onion and sauté until soft
4. Add peanuts and lentils
5. Continue to sauté for 2 minutes
6. Add curry powder cook for about a minute
7. Add grated tomato
8. Add coconut milk and cook until lentils are tender
9. Add water as need
10. Add banana skins a cook for 30 – 40 minutes, if it cooks dry add some more water
11. Add curry leaves and mint adjust seasoning
12. Serve with steamed rice/roti and favourite sambal
I prefer cooking a lot of the moisture away making the curry slightly dryer
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