TREAT. YO. SELF. Cinnamon Apple Pie Eggrolls and Fried Coconut Bananas

Fried Banana and Apple Pie Eggroll

Fried Coconut Bananas

Although I found this recipe in a Thai cookbook I tasted these delicious sweet treats sans the coconut on the city streets of Hanoi! They are yummy by themselves, drizzled with sweetened condensed milk or with a heaping scoop of ice cream. If you’re a weirdo and you’re not a banana fan this dish is great with a variety of fruit, such as apple and pineapple slices! So no excuses, its super easy, super cheap and supper yum!

Ingredients

1 cup self-rising (or all purpose; comes out a little different but still yummy)

½ tsp baking soda IF you’re using all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt (1/8 tsp)

3 heaping tbsp. sugar

1 egg, beaten

6 tbsp water

2 tbsp shredded sweetened coconut (or 1 tbsp sesame seeds)

4 firm bananas

Vegetable oil, enough for frying in your wok or deep         pan

 First, sift the flour and baking soda OR just place the self-rising flour in a bowl.

Stir in the sugar, egg and water until you have a thin batter (but thick enough to stick to the bananas). Then whisk in the shredded coconut so that it is evenly distributed.

Next, peel your bananas and carefully cut lengthwise and then in half cross ways to make 16 pieces. DON’T DO THIS STEP UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO DROP THESE JOKERS IN YOUR OIL otherwise they’ll get mushy and brown, ugly and gross.

Heat your oil in your wok or deep fryer (a small fry daddy is <$20 at Wal-mart if you’re really into frying). We dropped a piece of the coconut in the fryer to test if it was hot enough. You can also use a chunk of bread; it should brown in about 30-45 sec. Carefully drop the bananas in the oil. Please don’t burn yourself…hot oil hurts A LOT. And it will stick with you if it’s hot battered shredded coconut. Ja’Naie took over the frying because I’m kind of clumsy.  Flip the bananas over after about 12-15 seconds and cook for another 10 seconds on the other side if you’re using a deep pan/wok. If you’re using a fryer wait about 30-40 seconds. Test one or two to get your timing right and don’t crowd the pan or fryer. Place the cooked yummy goodness on some paper towels!

Serve this dish immediately. The hotter the better! Enjoy this dish with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with condensed sweetened milk or honey or by itself. SO DELISH!

My best friend, Ja'Naie, helped me make these dishes for my family holiday party. Although these eggrolls aren't particularly Asian; I found this recipe on StumbleUpon and fell in love. This dish is a really cool take on a East Meets West fusion dessert. Picture if an eggroll and an apple pie made a baby; that baby would be a beautiful inter-pastry baby! The world would love and embrace that baby.

Cinnamon Apple Pie Eggrolls

Ingredients

2 medium apples (Granny Smith)

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp all purpose flour

Egg roll wrappers

3 tsp cinnamon, divided

Vegetable oil (1/2 cup if frying in deep pan, 2 cups in deep fryer, 1 tbsp for baking)

First, peel and finely chop (small pieces but not mush!) apples into a bowl. Toss with 2 tbsp flour, 3 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon until well coated. To make the eggrolls, take one eggroll wrapper and place it on a plate. Spoon about a tbsp. and a half into the middle on a diagonal. Fold one corner over the filling tightly. Then take the side corners and wrap tightly from the side. Using your finger brush a little bit of water on the remaining top corner and roll the eggroll tightly sealing with the final corner.

Aha! This was definitely a trial and error dish!

Important tips:

• To keep your apple mixture from turning a gross brown color, squirt some lemon juice over them.
• If for some reason you don’t want to use fresh apples you can use canned apple pie mixture; however I’m unsure how it will taste. Also if you’re not an apple fan at all you can use other pie type fruits instead. My mom is actually allergic to apples so we made some cherry apple pie eggrolls with powdered sugar on top. If you’re using canned fruit topping/pie filling taste it to make sure its sweet enough! I added a tablespoon of sugar to the cherry pie filling because it was a little tart.
• Roll them tightly! Otherwise all the yummy juices will leak out and make a hot mess.
• Don’t overstuff the eggrolls or else all the juices will bust out and make a hot mess.
• Watch your oil! Make sure it’s not too hot!

To bake: Preheat the oven to 400 and place the eggrolls seam side down on a sheet pan line with parchment. Lightly brush the eggrolls with the 1 tbsp of vegetable oil. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned and crisp.

To fry: Gently heat 2 cups of oil over low heat until about 350 degrees. Fry each eggroll seam down for 3-4 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Let them drain on paper towels.

We attempted to bake these to be healthier but the eggrolls weren’t crispy enough. So we put some oil in a deep pan and fried them for a few seconds to crisp them up.

Toss the eggrolls with the remaining sugar and cinnamon immediately after cooking and serve hot! I also drizzled the eggrolls with a little sweetened condensed milk; caramel would work too!

I served this desert dish alongside the fried coconut banana with a scoop of ice cream for our holiday party. Everyone was skeptical at first because they were used to eggrolls being a savory appetizer. However, once they smelled the sweet aroma of apple pie they were excited to taste it. Everyone loved them; they were a great success!