Banana and curry!

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

Just wondering if anyone has sliced banana and peanuts on a curry? My wonderful grandmother would always serve her homemade curry with little bowls of peanuts and banana on the table for sprinkling on top. I’d forgotten all about it until my sister reminded me, but I’ve never seen anyone else serve it in this way.

My father was born in India and my mother lived in Malaysia. She made a fantastic curry with grated fresh coconut, sliced red onions, bananas and chutney. My job was to fry up the poppadums. No idea of the authenticity. Can't remember if there were nuts too but it did have currants in the curry. Oh I wish she had left the recipe somewhere!

And dessicated fucking coconut. Always reminds me of the taste of lime.

Sultanas seems very a English curries. You used to see them in lots of recipes in the 80s but these days dried fruit is more in Moroccan tagines.

My parents were in Tanzania, '57-64. Mum learned how to cook a curry from nearby Indian ladies.

So a highlight in my Essex home, circa 1964-68, was the curry; it had loads of bowls of stuff: banana, cucumber, boiled egg, sultanas, desiccated coconut.

The curry was lamb, tho mum knew what they'd eaten in Tanzania was goat.. 😂

Delish 😊

I've never has bananas on the the side, but my mum's banana curry was a favourite in our house. White British family in 80s.

Yes! There were crushed crisps as well! In a bowl! Just checked with my DB! 😂

@Miljea so glad to hear that it wasn't just our family that had crisps with their curry

My parents did this , they've still never had a curry house curry and probably never will
Desiccated coconut raisins and Banana even with a vesta 😂

Ah Vesta curry, now you’re talking! 1960s haute cuisine! The curry wasn’t as good as the Chow Mien with those amazing crispy noodles.
🍜 🍤 🍜 🥠 🍜

Oh those crispy noodles, they were so good... we loved Vesta, such a treat, especially the chow main & noodles.

'Chow main?' I meant 'mein'. Autocorrect tripped me up.

Ah yes. I've eat it like this, along with peanuts served by a woman in her 70s. It is really delicious.

I was brought up in Singapore in the 70's. Quite normal to have sambals served alongside a curry. Raw sliced onions, chutney, cucumber, chopped boiled eggs, cucumbers and tomatoes.

My mum always did a banana/coconut thing with curries in the 80's - the curries were gorgeous (she loved Madhur Jaffrey and my uncle moved to Bradford so she took a lot of taste and inspiration from their favourite restaurants there too)!
Never got the banana thing though.

Well this is an eye-opener!

I make a Mughlai chicken curry with sultanas in it and I thought that was pushing the boat out fruit wise

Thanks all, good to know that my granny wasn’t totally loopy then!

massaman curry has peanuts in it. Its a SE asian curry.

Never had curry with fruit in or on in our house. My mum is from the south of India. Chopped banana really wouldn't go with the the ones I/we make.

Sometimes mum makes a very hot sweet chutney she calls devil, or a chili coconut chutney which are both delicious, but very definitely be an occasional side.

We used to have peanuts on top occasionally (if it was a leftovers day) , or crisps. Which I'm certain is something my grandparents picked up here .

At Easter a family tradition is to eat a Sri Lankan curry with noodles, and sides of spring onions, chopped green chilli and mashed boiled egg to sprinkle on top.

I'm so hungry now!

Interesting that quite a few people are saying their parents had a stint living or working in India and then brought the ideas back. Do you think it was how the food had been adapted to suit British tastes in India at that time or more to do with the availability of more exotic foods in the UK? Whilst crisps with curry sounds odd, you can see how someone might think “we’ll we can’t get poppadums at home but crisps are pretty close”.

My parents used to serve curry with sliced banana and mashed up boiled egg. Delicious!

My uncle who was born in Indian To British parents always crushes his popadoms all over his curry and chucks all the sides on top. It made him seem quite exotic as a kid despite being beige in every other way. I’ll ask about bananas as I’m sure they had an actual Indian cook (as opposed to his mum or an army cook having a go I mean).

Anyway crushed popadoms on top are a lovely texture difference. Going to have to make a curry tonight now.

My mother included apples and sultanas in the curry and desiccated coconut on top (I always loathed the coconut). It was also the only recipe for which my mother used tinned rather than fresh vegetables (Hartley's Mixed Vegetables). However, that was her grandmother's recipe based on her father's experience working on cruise liners (my great-grandfather).

The rice was arranged in a ring on the platter and the curry was placed in the centre space and sprinkled with the coconut.

My DH makes a delicious banana and prawn curry, based on this recipe: www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/caribbean-shrimp-and-banana-curry/6313/

But I've never heard of putting banana on top. Might have to give it a go!

James Wong has a great recipe - can’t find a link online though!

Around here most of the curry houses offer a “Kashmiri” curry which is mild with almonds, cream and banana, so banana with curry can’t be all that outlandish.