Banana Nutella Tempura

Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso (and Shelley from At Home in Rome, in spirit) solemnly declare Thursday, February 5th “World Nutella Day 2009″ - a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella.

There you have it, in a nutshell, what Nutella Day is all about. Nicolas and I participated last year with a couple of recipes, and we had a lot of fun doing it. This year, this recipe, is solely my fault! You wouldn't want a young boy deep frying anything, will you? He is happy to be my main taster though.

I have to be honest with you, this recipe is a hit with my tastebuds, but it is not a good looking, photogenic, piece of cooking. I have some suggestions at the end, which I will try next time. I was happily making some tempura vegetables the other night, when it occurred to me that I could try frying the bananas with the extra batter (my Colombian readers could relate: aborrajados!!!) Then, another bolt of lightning stroke me, and Nutella became an essential ingredient for this experiment.


Ingredients

1 egg
250 ml ice cold water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour

5 or 6 medium size bananas
Nutella (about 3 Tablespoons per banana)
Vegetable oil (for frying)


Peel and cut the bananas into long slices. Apply the Nutella in between, secure with a toothpick. When all the bananas are assembled, place them in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.


Heat the oil on a deep fryer, or a frying pan to about 375 F. Mix all the batter ingredients together with a whisk until free of lumps. Do not let it stand long. Deep the banana-Nutella sandwiches into the batter, and fry them until golden. (Some Nutella melted away, making the oil dark, and the tempura batter darker.)


That is it! Eat warm and enjoy. My suggested alternative would be to fry the battered bananas without Nutella, and to add warm Nutella as a sauce over them. Sounds doable, doesn't it?