Maruyas are sweet banana or plantain fritters from the Philippines, often served as a snack or part of traditional Christmas fare. The fruit is battered, fried, and coated in sugar, and can also be made with sweet potatoes. The cuisine of the Philippines has influences from Chinese, Spanish, and American food.
A light snack often eaten by the on-the-go snacker who is in search of a sweet treat, maruyas are chunks of banana that have been battered, fried and coated in sugar. They are also called plantain fritters or banana fritters. Maruya hails from the Philippines, where the dish is considered a light snack or meal. It is often served by street vendors and food vendors at outdoor events. Once cooked, the fried banana pieces are sweetened by rolling them in sugar.
Before being beaten for maruya, the bananas are peeled and cut into shapes for frying. The shapes in which banana fritters are cooked vary according to preference, but cooks usually cut the fruit into sticks or lengthwise slices. Some new pieces of maruya are carefully cut into fun shapes designed to resemble a hand when cooked.
The batter ingredients used to coat the fried plantains or plantains include dry ingredients such as flour, salt, and baking powder, and wet ingredients such as water and eggs. Once coated, the battered bananas are fried in vegetable oil. To keep the maruya pieces from burning or going soggy, it’s important to heat the oil before cooking and test it to make sure it’s hot enough to brown the pancakes, but not so hot that the batter burns without cooking the banana.
Maruyas are often made from the sweet bananas that most people buy at the store, but they can also be made from plantains, which are a star cousin of the banana. In the Philippines, these plantains are called saba. Like bananas, starchy plantains become sweeter as they ripen, and it is often these ripe sweet plantains that are used in the maruya when the sweet plantains are not. As with bananas, a green plantain is an unripe plantain, and an overripe plantain has black colored skin. Another variation of maruya, called maruyang camote, uses sweet potatoes instead of bananas in pancakes.
Besides its status as a common fast food snack, this sweet dish is also served as part of traditional Christmas fare in Filipino culture. The Philippines is a group of islands in the western Pacific Ocean that collectively make up the country in Southeast Asia known as the Republic of the Philippines. The cuisine of this country has strong influences from a wide variety of cultures, including Chinese, Spanish and American food. Besides plantains, other regional ingredients commonly eaten in the Philippines include citrus fruits and tropical fruits such as coconuts and mangoes, cured meats, and a large selection of seafood.
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