Banana, turmeric, honey. These are the three ingredients for this month’s Royal Foodie  Joust hosted by The Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum.  Immediately, I thought of the banana spring roll (turon) we used to have as kids for snack.  Raw banana sliced, sprinkled with brown sugar, wrapped in spring roll wrapper then deep fried until brown and crunchy.  Sometimes, the vendors would add a small slice of jackfruit with the banana to give it a different “flavor”.  I was playing with the idea of slices of bananas sprinkled with turmeric, drizzled with honey then wrapped in the spring roll wrapper and fried. My taste-tester was not too excited about it (and I haven’t even made the dish!). So I scrapped that idea and moved on to something savory instead.

The inspiration for this savory/sweet dish was actually the zucchinis I harvested from my container garden. I wanted to make fritters so why not combine the zucchini and bananas? These snack/appetizers are spicy with just the right amount of sweetness from the banana and honey.  I would like to try this with a banana curry sauce as a dip.

SPICY BANANA ZUCCHINI BALLS

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coarsely grated zucchini, squeezed dry
• 1 large banana, mashed or chopped finely (ripe or not)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 3 tbs honey
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 2 tsp crushed chilli pepper
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup flour (or more if required)
• vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl until it forms a soft dough.  Add more flour if needed.
2. Heat vegetable oil on medium heat (about 350F).  Drop a teaspoonful of dough (regular teaspoon) into the hot oil and fry until brown, turning zucchini ball around. (Make sure your oil is not too hot or your zucchini balls will get too brown!)
3. Drain in paper towel.  Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Notes: You can adjust the spicing by using more or less of the curry powder and turmeric.  You can also do away with the chili pepper if you don’t like it spicy.  You can substitute chickpea flour or soy flour instead of all purpose flour, just as long as you add enough to form a soft, wet dough (like a very, very, very thick batter).  If you have unsweetened banana chips, you can use its powdered version (ground using spice grinder or food processor) instead of  fresh bananas. If you do, you will need less flour. About 1/4 cup of powdered banana is enough but you can add as much as you want, specially if you want a strong banana flavor. As for the honey, you can use agave nectar as substitute (about 2 tbs).

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