Smeerproppen (fried banana fritters or pisang goreng)
Dutch oil balls – we eat those on new years day. These ‘smeerproppen’ look like them but they are so much better. They are fried bananas in a batter of self rising flour. Like donuts. My daughter Loulou wants them for breakfast, so starts her batter immediately.
Smeerproppen #564 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 440.
Ingredients
- 6 to 8 large bananas
- 300 grams self-rising flour
- 3 dl milk
- 1 egg
- 75 grams of sugar
- pinch of salt
- oil
- Mix the flour, milk, egg, sugar and salt into a firm dough.
- Cut the bananas into large slices, mix them into the dough and fry them in deep, hot oil.
It’s important that the batter is thick and sticky, so the bananas are well coated. So keep the proportions of the ingredients exactly as in the recipe. We only use 4 bananas so I cut the amount of the ingredients for the batter in half.
I use chopsticks to pick the fried bananas out of the oil. Only do this if you are used to work with chopsticks, because if the balls fall back into the oil, it can be dangerous. I think chopsticks are really handy because I can easily turn them in the hot oil and one by one lift them out.
Too much bananas in the oil is not convenient. The oil will cool too much. Fry 3 or 4 fritters at a time and they will be fine.
Cover them with icing sugar and they are ready to eat. You can easily freeze them. I fill up a ziplock bag, so I can take out as many fritters I like at a time. I heat up the oven to 200 degrees and warm them up until crispy (10 minutes, depending on the size of the pisang goreng).
Beb Vuyk, best known for her Groot Indonesisch Kookboek (Great Indonesian Cook Book), was much more than a great cook. She belongs to the most important Dutch-Indonesian (Indo) writers and journalists of her time. Check this out.
