Banana Cue and Barbeque Day

Gelle has always said that she has never tried banana cue the ZC way, as she put it, that is, having them grilled and slathered with margarine and sugar, so we thought about making some at home.

Unfortunately we could not find any saging na saba in the market or the grocery stores, but luckily, I found some in a stall in the fourth floor of Lucky Plaza yesterday. At 50 cents a piece, it’s pretty expensive, but since I didn’t have a choice, I ended up buying a whole bunch.

saging na saba, 50 cents per banana at Lucky Plaza

At lunch time today, Gelle was thinking of cooking breakfast food (ham and eggs), but I told her, why not cook lunch food instead? Maybe we could do the banana cue with something else. Of course, I realize banana cue is not exactly lunch food. So Gelle pulled out some chicken from the freezer, wondering what we would do with it, and it came to me – barbeque! Tatsie then came out and added their pork strips to Gelle’s chicken.

I proceeded to mix the marinade for the meat. It’s a recipe I got from back when I helped sell barbeque for our SALT org booths during Ateneo Fiesta.

Recipe:
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup Sprite or any clear cola
1/4 cup calamansi (lime) juice

I let the meat sit in the mixture (at least 30 minutes) while Gelle and I started on the banana cue. I slid my hoptop grill on top of the stove fire and Gelle put the peeled bananas on its surface. The original recipe calls for margarine to be brushed on the bananas once they’re cooked, but we improvised a bit by ladling some frozen butter between the bananas and turning the bananas so that they were coated with it while being cooked evenly.

bananas cooking on the hobtop grill

After all the bananas had turned a golden brown shade, Gelle ladled them onto a plate covered with sugar and I proceeded to roll each banana in it so that it was covered all over.

banana cue – grilled bananas slathered in butter and sugar

We proceeded with the next course; it was the meat’s turn to sit on top of the grill. After awhile, when everything looked cooked, we served it up on the table with the bananas and sat down to eat them with glasses of Sprite and ice. I could not keep from exclaiming how delicious the barbeque was. That’s the way I am. The banana cue did not taste exactly like the original, but was not bad. It was a happy lunch indeed.

best tasting chicken and pork barbeque