Darasa

As tradition built it

Darasa

Serves 2. Boiled about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

• 6 green bananas, grated
• 120ml coconut milk
• a pinch salt
• 6 maxán leaves, in squares of about 23cm

Method

1. Grate the green bananas. The Garifuna kit is a wooden grater, the egi, and a mortar, the hana.
2. Mix them with the coconut milk and the salt.
3. Beat the mixture with a spoon until it is smooth.
4. Put a portion on each leaf, wrap it, and tie it tight so nothing escapes in the pot.
5. Boil about 30 minutes, until firm.
6. Serve with soup, or with fried fish in sauce.

Notes

Naming varies by source, darasa, bimena or dani; one source suggests dani may specifically denote a cassava-based version of the same dish rather than the plantain one, though this is not confirmed.

The recipe is chef Juan Hernández's, of Garífuna's Cafe Restaurant, for Prensa Libre; the leaf size is Aprende Guatemala's. Both use green banana, banano verde, and boil the darasa. A Belizean recipe steams them 25 to 30 minutes and adds orange and lime juice and black pepper.

What a modern chef changes

Concentrated plantain, gentle indirect heat

Rung 02

Method

1. Dehydrate a small portion of the grated plantain before folding it back into the fresh, wet mash, for a version with real concentrated plantain flavour rather than the wateriness fresh green plantain alone can bring to a steamed parcel.
2. Steam the wrapped parcels in a Big Green Egg run indirect with a water pan beneath, rather than boiling them in an open pot, for a gentler, more even heat that keeps the plantain leaf's own aroma in contact with the mass throughout cooking rather than letting it leach into boiling water.
3. Finish the tied parcel briefly over direct heat, lid down, for a few seconds of real leaf char, a genuine nod to open-fire cooking rather than a purely steamed result.