Banana Chips

Years ago, during my working days in Coimbatore, we had to walk past a pushcart chips shop, every morning to work and evening back. The man used coconut oil to deep fry the chips and the heady aroma of the oil will hit you few yards ahead. Though he sold potato, tapioca and sweet potato chips too, the banana chips were something else all together. Fresh from the pan to bamboo basket and then packed in a paper bag, made the chips a real treat. Later, many shops have come up selling these. With the development, the push cart shop has gone and has been replaced by a famous outlet.
Now, I get good raw bananas that are suitable for making crisps and make them at home. The deft and ease with which the man used to make them can never be achieved by me, but the attempt is worth. These days we enjoy safe home made crisps once in a while.
With about half a dozen large raw bananas and oil to deep fry those, you have crisps that keep for a few days, given the fact that you can resist them.



Wash and wipe the bananas. Peel them just lightly so there is a thin layer of the peel intact. Keep them immersed in cold water.
Place the oil in a pan and put it heat.
When the oil is almost smoking, hold the chips slicer above the oil and quickly slice the banana, dropping the slices in the oil.
However, beware of the steam that will assault as soon as the slices hit the oil. If you are not comfortable, slice the bananas on a flat dish and then drop the slices in the oil.
Allow the slices to fry well, tossing them in oil.
Remove, drain the excess oil and sprinkle generous amount of salt.
Cool and transfer to air tight containers.


I have tried making the sweet chips also. For these, I make a very thin sugar syrup, slice the bananas on a flat dish and toss them in the syrup before deep frying. The addition of the sugar gives the chips a deeper colour, not yellow any longer but crossed over to the brown side.

Notes: The shop man kept a bowl of water in which he had dissolved salt and turmeric powder.
He would sprinkle this water at intervals while the chips was being deep fried.
This way, there would not be a coating of salt on the crisps. I have never tried that, all because I am wary of the heat and wasting the oil.