The Little Banana Fritter That Says 'I Made This For You'
Updated: Aug 5
Some food isn't really about the food. It's about who you make it for.
Goreng Glodok — golden, crackly fritters of mashed ripe banana — is exactly that kind of dish. It's humble finger food, the sort you'd once find at a Malay stall for less than a dollar, wrapped in paper and eaten warm on the walk home. Nobody makes it to impress. People make it to share — a plate to bring to a friend, a sweet little something for teatime, a way of saying 'I was thinking of you' without having to say it out loud.
That's the spirit we love at #SgEatWithUs. The best cooking has always been a quiet act of love.
A disappearing treat
If you've ever bitten into a really good Goreng Glodok, you'll remember it: crisp and shattering on the outside, soft and heavy with banana inside, sweet but never cloying. The trouble is, the good ones are getting harder to find. Like so many of our humble hawker treats, it's quietly slipping away as the aunties and uncles who made them retire.
Which is all the more reason to make it yourself — and to pass it on.
Our version keeps the classic soul of the dish, with two small touches: a little brown sugar for a deeper, caramel note, and a spoonful of rice flour for that extra crackle on the outside.
The Recipe (makes about 24)
Ingredients
500g ripe bananas (the spottier, the sweeter)
80g caster sugar
20g brown sugar
120g plain flour
2 tsp rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
60ml water
2 tsp oil, plus more for frying
Method
Mash the bananas with a fork or whisk — but not too smooth. Leave some little lumps; they become the soft, sweet pockets of banana in the finished fritter.
Stir in both sugars.
Add the plain flour, rice flour and baking powder, and mix well.
Add the salt and water, then finally the oil, and stir into a thick batter.
Rest the batter for at least 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat about 2 inches of oil in a small saucepan. Test it by dropping in a little batter — it should sizzle up quickly. If the oil is too cool, the fritters drink it up and turn greasy.
Spoon in tablespoons of batter. Each should float up within moments. Fry until deep golden brown on both sides, then lift out and drain. Eat them warm, when the outside still crackles.
Three little tips
Wait for the spots. Underripe bananas make a bland fritter. The ones you were about to throw away — soft, freckled, almost too sweet — are exactly the ones you want.
Don't over-mash. The lumps are the point. A perfectly smooth batter gives you a smooth, dull fritter; a slightly lumpy one gives you those lovely bursts of banana.
Get the oil right. This is the whole game. Too cool and they're greasy; too hot and they brown before the inside cooks. That first test-drop of batter tells you everything.
A note on allergens
Contains gluten. Fried in oil — take care with shared fryers if cooking for anyone with allergies.
Now go make someone's day
Here's our small challenge to you: make a batch, and don't keep them all for yourself. Bring some to a neighbour, a friend, the person who always shows up for you. Watch what happens when you hand someone warm food you made with your own hands.
That's the whole idea behind #SgEatWithUs — food that brings us together, one plate at a time. See our upcoming sessions at sgeatwithus.org.
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