Pseudo-Caribbean Chicken and Crunchy Bananas

So, I wanted to try making something with a bit of a Caribbean feel to it. Note that I don't really know anything about how to actually cook a Caribbean-ish meal, but I had a concept in my mind and had to work towards it. I went for a marinated chicken dish, and had a flash of inspiration and decided to do something interesting with bananas for a side dish. I couldn't figure out what else to do with the meal (No rice! No beans!) so I rounded it off with asparagus because, well... I just like asparagus.

The successful product of utter guesswork.

The chicken dish was simple. It's nothing but  marinade I threw together.

Chicken Ingredients:

  - 1/4 cup oil

  - 1 tbsp lime juice (about half a lime worth if you're going fresh)

  - 1 tbsp dark rum

  - 1/8 tsp salt

  - 1/2 tsp chili powder

  - 1/8 tsp cumin

  - 1/4 tsp black pepper

  - 3 cloves garlic, diced

Chicken Instructions:

1. Toss all of the ingredients together in a plastic bag and throw in some chicken. It's plenty enough marinade for two large breasts.
2. Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. I had my chicken marinading for about three hours, which worked out fine. Overnight would have been ideal.
3. Heat your oven to 350 degrees and put the chicken in a greased roasting pan or glass dish. I pour whatever marinade is left over in the bag on top of it, but I don't know if this is actually a good idea. If you know more about that, let me know in the comments. For breasts, bake 20-25 minutes.
4. Take the chicken out of the oven and let it sit five minutes before eating. I wish that I could have grilled instead, but apartment life makes that somewhat difficult.

The bananas were an interesting concept. I like having something a bit starchy or savory with my meal, and the first Caribbean thing that popped into my head was plantains. Unfortunately, I don't make a habit of keeping plantains on hand. Bananas, on the other hand, are pretty normal for me. But bananas are sweet! So I decided to modify them a little bit. Ideally, you'd want to start this dish when the chicken is about ten minutes from being done:

Banana Ingredients:

  - 1 banana

  - A dozen or so tortilla chips

  - 5 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Banana Instructions:

1. Crush up the tortilla chips as much as possible and put them in a shallow dish.
2. Cut the banana into half inch slices.
3. Take each slice and press both sides down into the tortilla chips a bit.
4. In a ten inch frying pan, fry the banana slices in the vegetable oil over medium heat until the bananas just start turning dark brown on the bottom. For me, this was about five minutes
5. Flip, and fry the reverse side for about the same amount of time.
6. Take the bananas out of the frying pan and put them onto a paper towel to suck out some of the grease.

The asparagus was about as easy as the chicken. Cut off the woody, tough ends of the asparagus (if your knife encounters resistance, you aren't taking enough off) and lay them down together on a piece of aluminum foil about a foot long. Drizzle olive oil, salt, and pepper on them, and finish it off by sprinkling about 1/4 tsp of Italian bread crumbs on top. Fold the folder over to make a nice little rectangular pouch for the asparagus, and put it in the 250 degree oven with the chicken. I like it soft, so I put it in for the entire 25 minutes. If you like more bite to it you might want to limit that number to 10-15 minutes.

Overall, this was a pretty cool meal. I was stunned by how much I enjoyed the bananas - they were crispy and a bit salty on the outside with a wonderfully sweet and creamy interior. I don't think I've ever had anything quite like it. There's no way it's all that good for you. Bananas are super sugary to begin with, and by adding salt and frying them you aren't suddenly increasing their nutritional value. Having said that, I'm excited to make them again someday. The chicken was pretty good - it picked up a nice amount of flavor from the marinade. It had a bit of sweetness, but a tasty little tang to go along with that. My chicken had two small downsides, which I've corrected for in the recipe above. First, I originally sliced rather than diced the garlic. Since I poured the marinade on top of the chicken before cooking, I had a few hunks of garlic sitting around that just didn't bring much to the dish. Second, I originally added some onion powder to the marinade when I made it. I would avoid this - although it added a bit of taste, areas where a lot of marinade pooled on the chicken got to be a bit granular. You could dice or grate up some onion and add it to the marinade if you want that taste; i wouldn't do more than 1/8 cup. All in all I definitely will make this again; I felt like the chicken really had style. The asparagus was delicious and buttery smooth. Since it wasn't really important to the dish, I won't actually review it - I just thought that I may as well go through  how I make it in case anyone was wondering.

Chicken Final Verdict:

Taste: 4/5

Ease: 4/5

Health: 4/5

Banana Final Verdict:

Taste: 5/5

Ease: 3.5/5

Health: 2.5/5

---Update---
Actually, I would love to try this marinade on pork. I think it would do some pretty wonderful things.