Bananas Foster

If I'm judging by the last two weeks, I'd have to say that 2011 is going to be the year of decadence. We rung in the New Year with a food-filled weekend in New Orleans for a friends wedding and then I spent the next week in Charleston where I made it a mission to visit as many of my favorite eateries as physically possible. A highlight of it all for me an amazing meal at Galatoire's in New Orleans. It was the bananas foster bread pudding that set the whole thing over the edge for me thus I've had bananas foster on the brain ever since. Ingredients: (serves two generously) 2 bananas, air on the barely ripe side 3 tablespoons of butter 1/4 cup of dark run 1/4 cup of brown sugar juice of 1/4 of a lemon small pinch of kosher salt vanilla ice cream I peeled and sliced the bananas into one inch pieces while my butter melted in a skillet over medium-high/high heat . You want the bananas thick so that they don't get too mushy while they brown. Choosing barely/perfectly but not overripe bananas is the other trick.

I cooked the bananas for two minutes and then flipped them over to brown the other side for another two minutes.

I then added the rum and carefully- using a long fireplace lighter- ignited the sauce to flambe the mixture. This allows the alcohol to burn off more quickly than letting it simply reduce over the heat. Again you are aiming to caramelize the bananas without cooking them to mush. (You can just let it simmer for a minute if you prefer.)

As soon as the flame disappeared (takes 20 seconds or so), I sprinkled in the brown sugar, salt and lemon juice. I gently tossed the mixture together to coat the bananas in the toasty caramel-y sauce. As soon as the sugar had dissolved (maybe one or more two minutes), we to were ready to serve.

I tried to get fancy and I served the bananas over a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of Hagen Dazs Dulce de Leche ice cream. If you believe in such a thing, this was actually too decadent. I'd stick with plain old vanilla next time. Nonetheless, it was absolutely yummy. I'll try to work it into a bread pudding version next time!