Facts About Pisang goreng
Pisang goreng is a snack made of banana or plantain, covered in batter or not, being deep fried in hot cooking oil, and is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.
Pisang goreng is most often associated with Indonesia, and indeed the country has the largest variety of pisang goreng recipes. However, this fried banana snack is also considered native to neighbouring countries; particularly Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. It is consumed as a snack in the morning and afternoon. In Indonesia and Malaysia, pisang goreng is often sold by street vendors, although some sellers have a storefront from which to sell their wares.
Ingredients
Plantain is often used instead of banana. Traditionally, some cultivars of banana such as pisang raja, pisang tanduk and pisang kepok are the popular kind of banana used for pisang goreng. These banana cultivars has mild sweet and sour flavor and firm texture that will not crumble upon being fried. Pisang raja however, has softer texture and fragrant aroma. The banana is often battered and then deep fried in ample of palm oil. Pisang goreng might be battered or plainly deep fried. The batter most commonly uses the combination of flour, either wheat, rice flour, tapioca or bread crumb. Several recipe might add coconut milk or milk and vanilla extract into the batter to add aroma.
Most of traditional street vendors will then sell them as it is, without any additional ingredients or toppings. However, fancy coffee shops, cafe and restaurants that serve pisang goreng are more sophisticated and present them in various ways; such as sprinkled with powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, cheese, jam, condensed milk, chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
Photo: ProjectManhattan / CC0 / en.wikipedia.org
Pisang goreng in Indonesia
In Indonesia, pisang goreng is consumed as a snack to accompany tea or coffee, either in the morning or late afternoon break. Traditional warung kopi (local coffee shops) often offer pisang goreng and other snacks, including fritters and kue to accompany coffee or tea.
In Indonesia, pisang goreng come under the category of gorengan (Indonesian: fritters, from goreng "to fry"), and many varieties are sold on travelling carts or by street vendors throughout Indonesia. Other than pisang goreng, various kinds of ingredients are battered and deep fried such as tempeh, mendoan, tahu goreng (fried tofu), oncom, sweet potato, cassava chunk, cassava tapai, cireng (tapioca fritters), bakwan (flour with chopped vegetables) and breadfruit.
Every regions in Indonesia has developed various recipe for pisang goreng with a variety of different names, ingredients and cooking technique. In Bali for example, pisang goreng is called godoh biu, in West Java it is called cau goreng, in Java gedhang goreng, in Sibolga pisang rakit and in Pontianak pisang kipas.
Pisang goreng usually sold together with other gorengan fritters including fried tofu and tempeh. However, Pisang goreng Pontianak are widely popular in Indonesia with certain retail outlet exclusively sold only this type of fried banana.
Variants
Indonesia has rich variants of pisang goreng, including:
- Pisang goreng kipas or Pisang goreng Pontianak
- Refer to banana cut in the shape of fan, battered and deep fried. The term pisang goreng Pontianak often used interchangeably with pisang goreng kipas, as both has similar fan-like shape, but often filled or served with kaya jam.
- Pisang goreng pasir
- Literally means "sandy fried banana", refer to banana coated in bread crumbs resulting in grainy crispy crumbs that its skin has similar texture with croquette.
- Pisang goreng kremes
- Javanese pisang goreng kremes is quite similar to pisang goreng pasir but with different batter composition and different frying technique. The coating batter is made of rice flour, vanilla extract, and coconut milk, deep fried in ample of hot cooking oil to create crispy and crunchy kremes granules coatings, resulting in sweet fragrant aroma.
- Pisang goreng madu
- Literally means "honey fried banana", indeed honey is added into the batter mixture, and prior of serving honey also drizzled upon the fried banana. The color is rather dark due to the caramelised honey.
- Pisang molen
- Derived from Dutch influence in Indonesia, pisang molen literally means "milled banana". Unlike other batter-coated pisang goreng, pisang molen is wrapped around in tape-shaped thin pastry dough prior of frying, creating crunchy texture of pastry skin, while the banana inside is remain moist and soft.
- Pisang cokelat
- Often colloquially abbreviated as piscok, is a thin crepes skin filled with banana and choco sprinkles or chocolate condensed milk, folded and deep fried in similar fashion of making spring rolls. It is almost identical with Philippines' turon.
- Pisang nugget
- Small nugget-shaped fried banana. Its texture is akin to pisang goreng pasir that is coated in bread crumbs, however the different is in its smaller size due to sliced banana, thus its shape is quite similar to chicken nugget.
- Pisang goreng telanjang
- Literally means "naked fried banana", indeed it is plain fried banana without any batter coatings, greased with salty butter or margarine, or topped with grated cheddar cheese. Pisang raja and pisang tanduk are the most suitable banana cultivars to be fried without batter.
- Pisang goreng Manado
- Manado pisang goreng is actually similar to other batter-coated pisang goreng. However, the different is the fried banana is served with sambal roa, a spicy chili paste made of smoked roa fish and fresh chilies.
Similar or related dishes
Pisang goreng does not exist in the Philippines, unlike the rest of Maritime Southeast Asia, but there are numerous similar fried banana dishes. They are almost always made from saba bananas, a native cooking banana that is widely used in Filipino cuisine. The closest dish to pisang goreng is pritong saging, which is simply fried saba bananas (without batter) usually served with sugar or syrup. Bananas cooked with batter are a different dish known as maruya, which are more commonly made mashed or sliced very thinly and spread into a fan shape. However, the most common Filipino street food dishes made from banana are banana cue and turon. Banana cue are fried bananas coated with caramelized sugar and served on skewers; while turon is a type of fried dessert lumpia unique to the Philippines and is cooked in a crepe wrapper.
In Suriname this snack is also known as bakabana (meaning baked banana in Surinamese).
In popular culture
- In 1993 film adaptation of 1948 Dutch novel Oeroeg that set in Indonesian National Revolution, the main character's friend, Twaan, expressed his amazement about the peculiarities of the Dutch East Indies people that consumes fried fruit; the pisang goreng or fried banana. The shout "pisang goreng!" later become a friendly salute among these comrades in arms.
Malaysia