Fried Lotus Root with Banana Sriracha

My recently declared focus on Japanese ingredients and cuisine hit an impasse recently.   For starters, the holidays were a bit of  a barrier.   But I also underestimated the breadth and depth of the traditional ingredients that are in the NYC markets.   I quickly found out that my typical spontaneous market visits that lead to the dishes you read on this site wasn't going to cut it in this case.    I need to do a lot more research and come to the market with more of a plan.     So until I get up to speed on making these things humans call "plans", you're going to be seeing Japanese ingredients (that I know) with my own touches.

I recently had a bowl of thin, salty, crispy fried lotus root at a Japanese restaurant in the East Village called Kasadela.    One part of our excellent meal that I won't forget anytime soon was the fried lotus root.   I couldn't help but imagine them as a perfect little bite to start a dinner party.    I imagined a sweet yet spicy dollop of a condiment on each lotus root chip.   I thought about a guacamole I'd been making last summer, only enhanced with some chopped banana for sweetness and texture.  I realized I didn't need the avocado, and would simply add a spicy sriracha accent to the mashed bananas.    I simply chopped the bananas very finely, added a bit of sriracha and lemon juice, and mashed the mixture together with a fork.    The sweet, spicy, citrus flavors almost seemed to enhance the salty, crunchy chips.

The fried lotus root were equally good served like chips, sans condiment.  The key to success with the lotus root is getting them as thin as possible before frying them in a neutral oil (I used grape seed).  A plastic mandolin is the perfect tool, as the thin uniform slices lead to a chip that seems to shatter and crunch at the same time.

Comments

[Shannon]

Hi Joe,

My name is Shannon and I'm the editorial assistant at Foodbuzz.com. I am very impressed with the quality of your posts and to that end, I’d like to invite you to be a part of our newly launched Foodbuzz Featured Publisher program. I would love to send you more details about the program, so if you are interested, please email me at Shannon@foodbuzz.com.

And I never would have guessed fried lotus root and banana would work together. Thanks for the insight and sharing!

Cheers!

Shannon Eliot
Editorial Assistant, Foodbuzz.com
shannon@foodbuzz.com

[globoterra]

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