This past February, I had the pleasure to visit New Orleans for the first time. It’s a warm, hospitable city, pretty, great music, full of interesting history. Combine all that plus it’s a culinary destination.
Located near the delta of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans was an important port where much of the bananas and sugar would arrive by ship and sent out to much of North America.
Created in 1951 by Ella Brennan and Chef Paule Blange at the Brennan-owned Vieux Carre restuaurant. It can be now found all over the world and one afternoon, my friends and I got to watch how Banana’s Foster is made at Brennan’s. Of course we ate it!
When you read the ingredients you think, “is that all it is?” but when you pull everything together, it’s an addictive dessert you’ll making for family and friends and you will likely lick up the sauce left in the plate.
Bananas Foster
(serves 4)
4 Tbsp. butter (1/2 stick)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 cup banana liqueur
4 bananas (just ripe, not overly ripe), cut in half lengthwise
1/4 cup dark rum
4 scoops vanilla ice cream
- Place your butter, sugar and cinnamon in a large non-stick skillet. Turn the heat on to medium-low heat and stir with a spatula until sugar has dissolved.
- Add the banana liqueur and stir in. Add the bananas and cook for a couple of minutes or until they’ve just browned. Till pan to spoon some of the sauce over the bananas.
- Tilt the pan slightly so that most of your sauce and bananas have slid to one side of the pan. Add the rum to the other side of the pan. If using a gas stove, tilt pan toward the flame to ignite the rum (or use a long fireplace lighter to ignite).
- Once the alcohol has burned off, turn heat off and set the pan inside.
- Use a spatula to carefully place 2 banana halves in each plate/bowl. Add a scoop of ice cream into the center of each plate, pour sauce equally over bananas and ice cream. Serve warm.
