The Closet Gastronome: Saba–Langka Pie / Tarte à la banane–jacquier / Banana

Saba bananas and langka ("jackfruit") (media: coloured pencils on plain A4 paper)

🎉 🎇 Bonne année! 🎆 ✨ Happy New Year guys! 😊

Hope you're all doing well

The Bocuse d'Or ("World Cooking Competition") and the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie ("World Pastry Cup") have just concluded in Lyon, France. These prestigious biennial culinary competitions took place during the SIRHA 2017 (Salon international de la restauration, de l'hôtellerie, et de l'alimentation ("International Hotel, Catering, and Food Trade Exhibition")), a world event for gastronomy and for the hospitality, catering, and food service industries. At the Bocuse d'Or, Team Australia finished 8th out of 24 participants—which isn't a bad rank after all, considering the level of their playing field. 🇦🇺 Well–done! 👍🏼 So, congratulations and all the best to Chefs Daniel Arnold and Ryan Cosentino, as well as to their French coach, Chef Romuald Fassenet! More information about these two competitions can be found here:

Bocuse d'Or / Concours mondial de la cuisine / World Cooking Competition
http://www.sirha.com/en/bocuse-d-or
http://www.bocusedor.com

Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie / World Pastry Cup
http://www.sirha.com/en/coupe-du-monde-de-la-patisserie
http://www.cmpatisserie.com

I'm not really into those hard–core culinary competition stuff nor any of those reality TV cooking contests though, but more into the simple pleasures of home cooking [and eating 🍽️] and the like. 😋 (🤔 But why did I even started talking about those in the first place? Er, nothing really, except for want of a good introduction or so for this post, haha... 🤓) Alright, let's all head into the kitchen now then, hehe...

I recently came back from the Philippines after several weeks of Christmas and New Year holidays to be with my family whom I haven't been with for more than two years. During that time, I've been also doing some kitchen experiments on the side that utilise local yet fresh ingredients. And one of these experiments is this dessert—or snack or tea time companion, if you like—made of bananas and jackfruit.

The variety of bananas I used are what Filipinos call as saba. On the exterior, they're angular rather than round and smooth. If you take one and cut it crosswise together with its skin, it has a squarish appearance. They're also sweet yet relatively firmer than an average banana and are suitable for cooking, just like plantains. As a Pinoy/Philippine street food, these saba bananas are commonly coated with sugar, deep–fried, and then placed on skewers. These caramelised bananas on a stick are what you call as "banana-cue"—smart name eh? 😉 Anyway, to know more about saba and other types of bananas grown over there in the Islands, check out this useful resource from Biodiversity International: Farmers’ Handbook on Introduced and Local Banana Cultivars in the Philippines.

🤓 TRIVIA: Did you know that the aroma of bananas 🍌 is primarily attributed to a chemical called isoamyl acetate?

Structural formula of 3-methylbutyl acetate (or isoamyl acetate)

Saba bananas

Langka or jackfruit is a type of tropical fruit native to India but is now widely grown in many tropical areas—as far–flung as the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: http://www.jeffmarck.net/Treculia/PDFetc/PrescodBreadfruitBreadnutJackfruit.pdf 🇻🇨 🤓 This fruit has a greenish to yellowish spiky skin, but not prickly. It resembles durian, although these two are very much unrelated to each other. When unripe, this fruit can be cooked and eaten as a vegetable—although I'm afraid that I might be interchanging this with another closely related species called kamansi or breadnut, which we also cook and eat as a vegetable when still immature back in the Philippine Islands. A ripe jackfruit has a yellowish flesh. I can't describe how fragrant, sweet, and tasty this fruit is, but Harold McGee describes langka as having a “strong, complex aroma with musky, berry, pineapple, and caramel notes”. It certainly is not your usual table fruit, but more of a functional food, especially according to a 2012 review by Swami and his colleagues.

Alright, enough of the chatter and those introductory formalities and let's get eating... or should I say cooking first... 😁 But seriously, I believe that the more you understand your food, the better is your appreciation for it and respect for all the farmers and growers who produce them with blood, sweat, and tears, don't you think? 😃 You'll then be thinking twice whether to bin or not that food that's still safe to eat. Thus, preventing food wastage consequently. At least that's my philosophy or so.

This pie—as with all pies—is basically made of two components: the crust (or pastry shell) and the filling. I prepared my pastry dough a day earlier so that it can rest overnight inside the refrigerator before rolling out. For the crust, I tried to make two variants: one made of farine complète (whole wheat flour) and the other made of regular all–purpose flour. I made two pies for each crust type for my family and they all savoured and loved it! 😋

🍌 Saba–Langka Pie / Tarte à la banane–jacquier / Banana–Jackfruit Pie 🥄

Ingredients for the pâte sucrée (sweet pastry): ← Ideally, the quantities in this recipe can line out two 9″ (≈ 23 cm) pie plates. But you may have to make more, in case you have a larger tray. You can always bake the excess pastry trimmings and eat them like biscuits. 😉

600 g flour
300 g butter
150 g icing/powdered sugar ← I reduced this amount as I don't really like my crust to be too sweet
2 eggs

Procedure:
– Rub butter into sifted flour (If you have a food processor, this step would be easier); Mix should resemble breadcrumbs (Do not overmix or otherwise we'll have a tough pastry! If we overwork it, too much gluten will be encouraged and formed. Gluten strengthens the dough and makes it tough. We don't want that texture for our sweet pastry nor when making pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry).)
– Beat eggs lightly with sugar and add to the flour–butter mixture
– Wrap in plastic and chill inside the refrigerator to rest, preferably overnight
– When rested, line out pie plates with the pastry; Prick the bottoms using a fork; Chill pastry–lined pie plates in the refrigerator or freezer for at least an hour
– Blind–bake the shells in a preheated 180°C oven until lightly browned
– Cool prebaked crusts before adding the filling

The whole wheat pastry ready for rolling

Lined pie tin

Rolled out pâte sucrée (all–purpose flour variant)

Ingredients for the filling: ← I didn't exactly measure my ingredients for the filling, as I was just leisurely cooking in our home kitchen. I always believe that any excess can always be eaten on its own, hehe... 🤓

saba bananas ← Peeled and cut into chunks. You don't need to buy those bananas with blemish–free skins as we're not going to eat the peelings anyway. I got my saba bananas at a bargain: ₱1 (≈ 3¢) per piece. I couldn't be happier when I always strike a deal at the fresh markets—I always feel like winning! hehe... 😄
jackfruit ← I bought fresh jackfruit flesh from the market at ₱40 (≈ A$1.06) per 100 g. Realising that this was above my budget, I then thought that preserved jackfruit flesh would be more economical and tastes just as good too! So I grabbed a couple of jars from the supermarket.
muscovado ← This is a special type of sugar, but you can always substitute it with brown sugar. Lightly sweeten, since our bananas are already sweet enough. But then our individual sense of taste are all subjective, so add more muscovado as you fancy.
water ← From the tap; about a cup would do. This is only to ensure that our filling is a bit moist and not too dry.
breadcrumbs ← You can use stale bread and just finely crumble them in a food processor
cinnamon, ground
vanilla essence ← Vanilla pods are always the best, only if you're not financially challenged, unlike me who's currently living on a budget, hehe...

Procedure:
– Mix muscovado and water together in a big pot and chuck the bananas in; Boil and simmer gently until bananas are a bit soft
– Add the breadcrumbs; Simmer further if mixture is too wet (If filling is too wet, it can make a soggy–bottomed pie, which we're not after.)
– Turn off the heat, sprinkle some cinnamon, splash in your vanilla essence, and mix (If using vanilla pods, just scrape off their seeds and save the vanilla bean rind for another use (e.g. when making crème anglaise))
– Let the filling cool before placing in the pastry shells
– When do we add the langka? We'll use the jackfruit when we're ready to assemble our pie. If using fresh jackfruit flesh, shred/pull them into bits and caramelise them with muscovado on the hob, on a different saucepan. If using preserved jackfruit, we only need to shred/pull them into small pieces and set them aside for a while.

Cutting saba

Pie assembly:
– Fill the blind–baked pie shells with the banana filling, around ¾ full
– Scatter pulled jackfruit on top of the banana filling evenly
– Sprinkle some more cinnamon, if desired
– You can also do a layering technique: banana filling first, jackfruit pieces, then another layer of banana filling, and so on
– Cover the filling with a rolled out pastry dough or create a woven lattice/crisscross pattern—which I did for two of my pies 👌🏼 🙂 (If covering with a single pastry dough, don't forget to make vents by pricking the tops with a fork or small knife.)
– Brush the tops with egg wash and bake in a preheated 180°C oven until golden brown