To say I adore the United Kingdom is an understatement. I could never be bitter with England, even if it did storm on my perfect day. Hey, at least we had fish and chips galore. Truthfully, the storms just made my future self grow fonder of dark storms on perfect days. They flash me back to sitting in haunted pubs (at least they were haunted in my mind), and ordering a round of Tennent’s with a group of then strangers while the rain poured just outside.
London Calling
Upon arrival with my brother Rob in London, we made a silent agreement to only eat fish and chips for the duration of our stay. We drowned ourselves in pints of cheap beer and conversations with strangers. Rob and I are both creatures of habit, so once we found a pub we both enjoyed, we refused to go anywhere else. I think the determining factor must have been that it was stumbling distance to our hostel and it came with a dog. While I don’t remember the pubs name, I do remember the feeling.
As humans, we tend to get an idea in our head of how something will be, before we have even met it yet. With London it was no different. I wanted dim and dreary, mysterious and enchanting. I wanted The Clash playing in the background and the smell of cigarettes filling the air. I wanted a stroll around Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon where nobody knew my name. Ah, yes, I wanted to drink pints with the boys and dance around the streets listening to acoustic guitars. And that I did. The hangover on the train to Ireland, just a small price to pay for Rob and myself, in the backs of our minds we knew we’d do it the same way all over again- as we popped a bottle of aspirin.
I simply refuse to give up my favorite things just because I don’t want to consume animal products. I think it is silly to think that because I don’t want to eat a fish, that I won’t find joy in a dish that takes me back to dreary London. This dish is proof that you don’t need a fish slathered in beer batter to take you away to a dim candle lit pub outside of Waterloo.
What is Banana Blossom?
There are so many elements that go into creating a dish or a feeling. I’ll first start by saying that I have tried making the perfect British fish and chips with several whole ingredients- celery root almost had the win on this! When I discovered banana blossom, it was like the world stopped. Like some epic love at first bite story, I have gotten completely lost in banana blossom the last few months.
This yummy flower comes from the end of a banana tree and is incredible versatile. It has that flakey fish texture that takes me back to a pub just off North Ends Way. Maybe USA is just late to the party, because this whole food has been very popular in southeast Asia for quite some time. If you are having trouble finding banana blossom, you’re not the only one. You will have to make an excursion to your local Asian market.
Preparing Banana Blossom
It’s a flower, people… you could literally eat this straight out of the can. I wish all the rumors were true about vegans being so much healthier, but honestly, if I could lather everything I own in beer batter…. I would with zero regrets. There are typically 5 banana blossoms in a can. I season them with lemon and sea salt, just as I would a fish.
However, I also add one of my all time favorite ingredients- seaweed flakes. I’m sure you could buy seaweed flakes at the store, but I usually just blend a few nori (seaweed) papers and keep them in a shaker with the rest of my spices. There is nothing more annoying than blending nori every other day, and I use in so many things. Next, I toss the banana blossoms into either an arrowroot starch or corn starch. The last step is to coat them in beer batter and fry them up!
Vegan Tartar Recipe
There are two crucial ingredients to a proper tartar sauce and that’s mayonnaise and pickle. If you’re following my recipes, I would like to think its for one of two reasons… you want to escape to another place or you want to lower your consumption of animal products. Either one of these make me skip around the room *says in Michael Scott voice* happy. If you are exploring the vegan culinary world, then you should know- THERE ARE VEGAN OPTIONS FOR EVERYTHING. Plant options are quite literally everywhere from plant butter to plant sour cream.
For a vegan tartar sauce, simply dice up a pickle, add in a squeeze of lemon juice, a dash of fresh dill (or dried dill), and plant mayo. I keep my tartar uber simple. Dare I say, on occasion I add a bit of sriracha and go for a full blown baja fish taco with sriracha tartar… drooling. Have no fear, I’m already typing a baja fish taco recipe.
“London is like a cold dark dream sometimes.” -Jean Rhys
