Shredded chicken & banana blossom, from our sweetass Thai cookbook... I've been wanting to make this for a couple of weeks, and last time I went to the Southeast Supermarket, they had fresh banana blossoms in the produce section, so I bought one. I made chili jam, or nam prik phao the night before, and that turned out to be pretty tasty, if not quite spicy enough.The dish is basically a salad with chicken cooked in coconut cream, tomatoes, mint & cilantro, a dressing made with the chili jam, and the banana flower, which you simply clean, shred, and soak in cold water & lime juice while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. The disappointing part was that the banana flower's contribution was really weak. Other than imparting a slightly rotten aftertaste, it really didn't bring much to the table (pun completely intended).
Now I'm not trying to escape responsibility here, but I do feel that the instructions for preparation were simple enough that even I couldn't have screwed them up, which leaves 2 possible explanations:
- flavor loss occurred in shipping, or
- banana flowers just aren't that good to eat.
Next time I make this dish (probably in the next week or so, because I quite enjoyed it despite the Banana Flower Disappointment) I will try substituting artichoke.
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