Cekodok Pisang (Fried Banana Cakes)

One common trait shared by all Malaysians? Eating. We eat breakfast, lunch and before dinner look for kuih-miuh for tea and then sometimes after dinner, look in the fridge or stand in front of the 24-hour mamak stall, thinking what to have for supper! :)

The thing that I miss most here in CA is the splendor of tea-breaks. In Malaysia, at around 2pm, from nowhere you would suddenly find a makcik and her daughter put up a foldable giant umbrella under the big, shady tree of the right side of the pavement and set up several trays of homemade cakes on a table. And on the left side of the pavement, another 'uncle' and his wife set up a big vessel with gallons of oil and start frying up crispy vadais and bondas and samosas. Beside his set-up, another 'uncle' arrives and opens up the container attached to his motorcycle and sets up his fruit rojak ‘stall’. And this is just on the left and right sides of one of the several the pavements, mind you!

Ahh…teatime is Malaysia is really celebrated. No makciks under umbrellas or 'uncles' and 'aunties' to get teatime treats from here. Somehow I have lost the interest in tea-breaks after coming here. It’s all good too…counting all the calories I can save ;) But sometimes on a breezy day like this, it’s just so comforting to eat hot cekodoks with a hot cuppa coffee :)

Cekodok is a type of fried cake made of flour and flavored with a varieties of things from dried shrimps, dried anchovies, onions and ripened bananas – making it good savory as well as sweet.The cekodok featured here is sweetened with ripened bananas. I made it even simpler fr me by I adding mashed up ripened bananas into a cup of my favorite store-bought pancake flour (Krusteaz)and then fried up the thick batter in hot oil.

The result: cekodok pisang – crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside!