Chinese Fried Banana Fritter

Hello! Hi everyone. Wesley here. Today we're diving back into our series dedicated to Chinese comfort food classics with maybe the only scenario where I have ever actually enjoyed a banana, which is a Chinese fried banana fritter, or "zha xiangjiao." For those unfamiliar, some may recognize the Chinese banana fritter as a dish that frequently appears on the dessert menu of Chinese American restaurants, featuring a crispy battered and fried banana, often served with ice cream (the presence of dairy of course, should be your first tip that we are deep into the belly of Americanized Chinese cuisine). 

For our version today, we'll be serving ours with a bit of honey and Chinese five spice, though I can tell you that I have come across a wide variety of toppings on this dish, including things like powdered sugar, maple syrup, or even nothing at all. What's most interesting to me about this dish is that while your more typical American style fritter would involve breaking down the banana, and working it directly into the batter itself (not unlike an apple fritter, for example), our Chinese styled fritter will involve keeping the banana in whole chunks, then coating it in a quick tempura batter. This is gonna yield a lighter and softer texture to our fritter, which is pretty unique from your more typical American styled donuts. Hope you try it.