It goes together like banana and strawberry...

Does banana and strawberry really go well together?  I don't know when the pairing of those two fruits first came to be. So they say that bananas were first domesticated about 5,000 years BC.  The strawberry that we know, was the result of a crossbreed from two different types, and was done in France in 1740.  So, I would guess that the first strawberry was eaten with a banana, maybe in 1740 in France. 

Now, what did or what could that duo of flavors have tasted like?  Maybe something like this:

Well, what is it?  That, which may not look like much, is my strawberry and banana pie.  Here is what I did:

These are my bananas and I took some softening strawberries:

I made some simple pie crust: ice water, flour and butter

Okay, as anyone does with a pie, made the dough, placed it in the dish, cooked it for 15 minutes at 355 degrees F with a piece of foil on the bottom, then removed it and cooked it for another 15 minutes.  Then sliced the bananas first and layered as much of the strawberries I could, into the dish.  Covering it wish some another piece of dough and into the oven it went for 45 minutes.  What came out wasn't necessarily the best looking item, but was a very, VERY, tasty treat.  If you want more info or the recipe for the pie dough, email me.

You are now in the presence of royalty....

Like many other culinary inventions, no one can be 100% certain as to where it was first invented or who invented it.  Take for instance the "Buffalo Wings".  Some say that they invented it by mocking chicken wings and calling them buffalo wings, some say that they made a sauce that was so hot that it could give buffalo wings and others say that they were named such because the creator has his restaurant in Buffalo, NY.  Now, most likely, many different people could have invented it at the same time.  There is no way that one person, on the whole planet, could have had the idea of frying chicken wings and then coating them in hot sauce, before everyone else had.

The sandwich has no definite origins.  You would think that it is a no-brainer to take some sort of food and place it between two pieces of bread. How else would eat peanut butter and jelly, if you had nothing to smear it on and eat together?  Since the invention of bread people have been using it as we use it today. The first written use of the word 'sandwich' came from the English in the 1700's, when the 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu ordered a dish of meats prepared and served between two slices of bread.  The legend is that so many others liked the idea that they called it the "food of Sandwich" or "the same as sandwich".  Like any restaurant that has a food item named after a person, soon people just start to order the item using that famous person's name.  So, people started to order and make "sandwiches".   The Royal Earl did this because the two slices of bread on either end protected and kept his hands clean, so he could play cards without getting food and filth on the playing cards.

Whether the Earl invented it or not, still doesn't dispute the fact that we all have some favorite sandwiches.  I had one today, where I took some home-made turkey meatloaf, placed it on some freshly home-made rosemary bread, threw a spoonful of sauerkraut on top of that and then a nice sprinkle of ground black pepper with some squirts of ketchup and mustard.  That sandwich was only able to be consumed and eaten with a knife and fork so it fulfilled the purpose of the Earl's original sandwich creation.

Famous people do make other sandwiches and I think that if asked, more people would be familiar with Elvis and his peanut butter and banana sandwich habit than the Earl.  On top of that, Elvis was a king, which makes him a higher class of royalty, than the Earl.

Because it is 9:29pm on a Thursday night and I am in the mood and hungry, I think a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich should be in order.  Just like the Earl or Elvis, my father invented this sandwich.  I am sure that someone else had the idea at cooking their peanut butter and jelly, but with no recorded history of it, I trust my dad.  So, this 20 year old recipe involves nothing more than a hot pan, butter and an already made sandwich.

Now, the jelly was one of my home-made strawberry and rhubarb jellies.  You will likely not find any like it, until next year when I start selling my jams across the world.

I love this sight.  When butter is in a pan, that means that something good is going to come about.  So, you melt the butter in the pan while smearing some butter on the top of the sandwich.  When the butter is melted place the sandwich, un-buttered side down.  Cook the sandwich on high heat for a minute, or until it is browned. Then flip it over and cook the other side.  What comes out of this is this:

Each bite produces a flavor of that moist butter toasted bread, with molten hot liquefied jelly and hot peanut butter. A complex symphony of flavors even for something as simple as PB&J. What could be better than this?

the secret recipe...

 In the world of cooking there is the sub-field of molecular gastronomy and as this sounds like any other cooking field, this one is fairly new.  Especially when it comes to making fruit caviar or turning things into powders or foams, this form of cooking seems to be very new, about 5 years new. It is so new, that while there are a few sites out there and a few blogs, there isn't that many recipes that deal with everything.  For example, the way to cook chicken has been around long enough that there are probably over a million different recipes involving chicken. However, imagine wanting to make strawberry caviar and not finding a single recipe.  What do you do? Experiment.

 I started by taking out the juicer from our basement and after cleaning it, I juiced some strawberries.  I added about 2.5 grams of sodium alginate to the 250 grams of strawberry juice and made chunky strawberry juice.  It almost looked like a puree' which means the alginate didn't dissolve properly.  I mixed the calcium chloride into the water and then got my things ready.  When I first did caviar, there was still a salty taste on the beads even though I thought I washed them off. Now, after they are 'cooked' I place them in a giant bowl of water, so the salty residue on them becomes diluted in the water and they only have their juice taste.

 When I placed my syringe into the juice mix, it was chunky going in, but when I squeezed it out, 2 feet over the bowl, they did form perfect drops or spheres as they fell and splashed a bit.  Out of 250 grams of juice, I messed up once but still had enough to fill a 4 ounce jar with strawberry caviar. 

 The issue was two fold:  First, I read online that the caviar could be heated, and not break the bonds. That much is true and I found this out by adding a bit of water into a 4 ounce jar, adding the caviar, sealing them in and then processing the jar like I do all of my other jars.  After 10 minutes in boiling water, the jar came out and was all ready and the little pearls were still jiggling around in the water, so it worked! The other issue had to deal with taste.  Since there wasn't a clear and easy recipe on strawberry caviar online, I had to improvise and the frozen strawberries that I used, after the caviar was done, didn't have a very 'strawberry' taste.  It tasted like watered down strawberries, which isn't something I enjoy that much.  It is a lesson though that I do need to either get better strawberries and get a better juice mixture or, as my wife suggested, storing them in something.  My wife was shooting ideas out like storing them in jars with some sweetened water or perhaps something tasty like wine.  Those ideas didn't go unheard and now that I have the chemicals and the fun when doing things like this, more flavorful strawberry caviar in red dessert wine, may be something you can buy soon, from me.