What Is Banana Ketchup?

Table of contents:

Video: What Is Banana Ketchup?

Video: What Is Banana Ketchup?
Video: Make Better Banana Ketchup At Home from Scratch 2024, November
What Is Banana Ketchup?
What Is Banana Ketchup?
Anonim

You heard right, banana ketchup. Although it may not be popular on our table, this fruit spice is prevalent in the Philippines, where it originates. Although traditionally called ketchup, there are no tomatoes in the sauce.

Instead, the list of ingredients includes bananas, sugar, spices and vinegar to create a fragrant, slightly sweet product used for all kinds of dishes. If you replace bananas with tomatoes in the classic ketchup, you will get something quite close to the Filipino basic banana ketchup or ketchup, which predominates on the masses throughout the country.

Like the classic, banana ketchup has a historywhich is worth knowing. Food scientist Maria Orosa is helping revive the country with her edible inventions, with banana ketchup being the most famous in the group. She studied food chemistry in the United States when she was in her early 20s, graduating with a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Washington.

Orosa comes home to help make sustainable foods from local ingredients in the Philippines. Since tomatoes had to be imported, she created a similar sauce made from banana puree, with various spices, vinegar and a little red coloring to replace the original ketchup. Banana ketchup is still common today, used in classic dishes such as burgers, fried chicken and spaghetti in the Filipino style, where banana ketchup is used instead of tomato sauce.

What to do with it?

Use banana ketchup as you would use any spice, be it for a hot dog, such as dipping for chicken nuggets or french fries or on meat. It tastes very similar to ordinary tomato ketchup, but has a sweeter base. In the Philippines, this sauce is traditionally served with tartang talong, a piece of eggplant dipped in an egg, served for breakfast or lunch.

There is also a dish with banana ketchup paste called Filipino spaghetti, which includes a lot of sauce, warmed and mixed with slices of hot dog before being added to noodles. Banana ketchup is also great for eggs, rice and as an addition to meats, vegetables and anything you want to add a fruity flavor to.

what is banana ketchup
what is banana ketchup

What does banana ketchup taste like?

Think of the basic ketchup, then add a sweet note to it and you're done the taste of banana ketchup. Due to the vinegar and spices, this product has a very similar taste to the food it is intended to replace, but the tropical fruit aspect gives it a juicy sweetness. There is no taste difference between brown and red banana ketchup, the latter simply has added food coloring to give it a pink hue.

Storage

Store banana ketchup like any ketchup. You can leave it on the shelf until you open it, then put it in the fridge. If you make your own banana ketchup, you have to keep it in the fridge, where it should last for months, it all depends on how much vinegar is used.

Options

There are not many variations based on banana ketchup, but you can get different types with different amounts of spices and vinegar. The main Filipino recipe includes ripe bananas, brown sugar, white vinegar and garlic. Some alternative recipes require tomato paste, salt, honey, ginger, onion, hot peppers, cloves and soy sauce.

Recommended: