Banana Trees Good For Smoking


 
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I don't know about the wood. However, many of the world's best grilled food is wrapped in banana leaves. For example, there's a style of cooking in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico that involves putting an Achiote paste on fish, chicken, or pork, wrapping it in little packets with a bananna leaf and grilling and/or slow roasting. Most of us have to make do without the bananna leaves, but this stuff is outrageously good. I've done a long-roasted pork version "Cochinata Pibil" that is to die for. You could do this on the WSM in some kind of a banana leaf lined roasting pan.

I've also done Sea Bass grilled tacos this way with the Achiote Sea bass filets charred over a hot charcoal fire.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jeff lowe:
[qb]Yes I love cochinita pibil!! Do you make it in the WSM?[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, I have only made it in the oven. It's really a moist-heat braised dish like a beef stew where the cooking liquid comes about half way up the meat. The fist sized hunks of pork butt just fall apart.

If you had the bananna leaves, you could cover a roasting pan and do it in a smoker. Lacking the bananna leaves, you seal it up with foil and bake it in the oven for 4 or 5 hours if I recall.

The Achiote paste that is the seasoning for Chochinata Pibil and for much of Yucatan cooking makes an unbelievably good grilling or bar-b-quing rub. It's a mixture of Annato seed, lime juice, vinegar, garlic, and spices. It forms a red crust that has a very earthy flavor.
 
I don't think the stalk/trunk will be of any cooking value. I'm going on memory here, but I think banana trees are like sponges. They are a very porous plant and are mainly water. I can remember cutting some down and within a couple of days they had soured and turned to mush. The leaves on the other hand are very useful.

Ashley
 
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