Banani loko - Appetizers

Preparation time : 10 min
Cooking time : 10 min
Location : Forested Guinea
Vegetarian : No
Difficulty : Easy
With :
Cost : Inexpensive
Cooking method : Hobs / Fire

Bananas loko are one of favourite children’s snacks in the school playgrounds. Also a much appreciated snack from adults during break-times at work.

Ingredients (For 4 people)

  • 5-6 bananas plantains

  • 3 tomatoes

  • 2 big onions

  • 1 small red Chilly pepper (up to the taste)

  • Oil (for the sauce and frying)

  • 1 Maggi stock, few basil leaves & big-thyme

  • Salt & pepper

Preparation

  • Peel and cut onions in small strips. Heat the oil, in a large pan over a medium-high heat. Cook onion, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add finely chopped tomatoes & pepper. Then add the basil as well as the crumbled bullion cube. Salt according to taste and let simmer on light fire during 10min.

  • Stir-it regularly and let simmer over at low heat during 5 to 10 minutes.

  • Meanwhile, prepare the bananas chips. Peel bananas and dice them in big slices. Heat the oil in a fryer-pot & deep fry the plantains. It’s ready when the banana takes a golden / brownish color.

  • Take out the bananas of the deep fryer once they are properly cooked and put them on kitchen paper in order to absorb as much oil as possible.
    Serve warm on platter garnished with the sauce.

Tips and Tricks

Choose ripe plantains, they are sweeters. The skin must be almost black. For the sauce, everybody does not like the hot pepper, so I would recommend adding the hot pepper only, so that you can share in two the sauce. One with hot peppers the other without, this will make everybody happy.