Banana salad (piesangslaai)
This versatile banana salad, with its pleasantly piquant, almost-sweet dressing, became quite popular at large gatherings in South Africa.
This could be because it is so easy to make a huge amount of it, or maybe because people liked the idea of eating their bananas with curry-flavoured condensed milk. Marietjie’s mom certainly made huge banana salads for church gatherings.
Banana salad is good for a braai too, or served as a side with a strong curry, or quickly thrown together for a working-from-home lunch. To this end we shrunk the recipe down significantly, but include the original recipe, in case you need to provide salad for a small crowd.
Ingredients
Small banana salad
2 to 3 servings.
- 2 good-sized bananas (about 300 grams with their skins)
- ½ small apple
- 1 tablespoon nuts (walnuts, pecan nuts, or almonds)
- 1 tablespoon sultanas
- ¼ of a capsicum (sweet pepper
For the dressing:
- ¼ to ⅓ cup (about 60 to 80 grams) mayonnaise
- 1½ tablespoon (25 gram) condensed milk
- ½ to 1 tablespoon chutney
- ½ teaspoon of your favourite curry powder (or to your taste)
Large banana salad
About 16 servings.
- 2 kg banana
- 3 apples
- 2 onions
- ½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecan nuts, or almonds)
- ½ cup sultanas
- 1 capsicum (sweet pepper)
For the dressing:
- 3 cups (750 ml) mayonnaise
- 4 tablespoons chutney
- 4 teaspoons mild curry powder
- 1 cup condensed milk
Method
- Peel and slice the bananas.
- Core the apples, and dice them skin and all, and add to the banana.
- Chop the onions. Blanche them to kill the raw onion taste, by steeping it in freshly-boiled water for a couple of minutes. Drain well, and add to the fruit.
- Chop the nuts and capsicum, and add to the fruit.
- Mix the ingredients for the dressing, pour over the fruit, and mix well but gently.
Notes
We omitted the onion for the small banana salad, but garnish it with chopped lemongrass or coriander.
People sometimes add green peas for colour.