These roasted, caramelized bananas in Tia Keenan’s new Short Stack cookbook dedicated to just one ingredient—Chèvre—caught our hungry eyes. They’re topped with chèvre yogurt and toasted pecans and we had to have the recipe. Below, Tia explains the inspiration behind the decadent breakfast and why she’s chèvre’s No. 1 fan.
Chèvre was one of my first forays into the world of “fancy cheese”. It was French, it was fresh and it was as frisky as the goats whose milk made it possible. Chèvre was alive! It was tangy, grassy, citrusy, and bright, and I was smitten at first bite.
In the process of making Chèvre, I came to appreciate that my kindred feelings about chèvre—besides the playful, anarchistic joie de vivre that I share with goats—are that it’s more than a cheese to me; it’s an attitude, a perkiness with a side of reinvention.
Chèvre is dense and creamy, a rare textural combination for a fresh cheese (for comparison, consider the soppiness of whole-milk ricotta or the curdy crumble of farmer cheese). Because it’s compact, it “loosens” with the addition of milk, cream, yogurt or other liquids without losing its creaminess, which is how the chèvre yogurt (sweetened with honey) in this recipe for roasted bananas works. And unlike other cheeses, chèvre doesn’t melt so much as meld. It’s for painting broad strokes with acidity and fat and for depositing pockets of it, as soft and inviting as a new set of bedsheets.
The recipe for roasted bananas came from a dream: I’d live in a rickety old house that I could fill with interesting, eclectic houseguests—the kind of folks who’d need a place to crash while they finished a revolutionary novel or required some R&R after pursuing an improbable international romance. Now that I’ve acquired said dream house, memorable breakfasts are how I ensure a steady flow of houseguests throughout the year (few adults ever have a home-cooked breakfast made for them, so it’s proven to be a truly enticing amenity). Breakfast cheese seals the deal.
Roasted Bananas with Chèvre Yogurt & Toasted Pecans
From 1 lime, grate 1 teaspoon of zest and squeeze 1 tablespoon of juice
1 teaspoon dark rum
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
4 bananas, halved lengthwise with the peel on
4 ounces chèvre, at room temperature
1 cup goat’s milk yogurt, divided
1 teaspoon honey
½ cup roughly chopped toasted pecans
SERVES 4
Preheat the oven to 450°. In a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, rum, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar and salt.
Nestle the banana halves peel side down in a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish and brush their flesh with the lime juice mixture. Bake for 15 minutes, until they’re soft and just starting to brown. Increase the oven temperature to broil and continue roasting the bananas for 5 more minutes, until they’re slightly caramelized.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, use an electric mixer at medium speed to beat the chèvre with a ¼ cup of yogurt, the honey, and lime zest until the mixture is smooth and airy. Fold the remaining ¾ cup of yogurt in by hand and set aside.
Using a spatula, carefully transfer the bananas from the baking dish to a serving platter (they will be quite limp, so move slowly), spoon the yogurt over them, sprinkle with the pecans and serve immediately.
Buy it: Chèvre by Tia Keenan, $13 on Amazon
Excerpted from Chèvre by Tia Keenan. Copyright © 2018 by Short Stack Press. Used with permission of the publisher.
