Cooking with Banana Leaves

Banana Trees

The Banana leaf is a multipurpose wrapper for grilling, steaming and baking. It also makes an attractive and biodegradable take-away package that will contribute a nice aroma to foods. You can buy them frozen in Asian markets but once they thaw out they are really only good for cooking with banana leaves.

Banana Leaves
(Daun Pisang)

There's more than one way to fold a banana leaf. One of the easiest is to start with the food to be wrapped on top of a square-cut leaf.

Banana Leaves "To Go"
(Bungkus Pincuk)

Place a second leaf on top of the first.



Fold the frint corners over as if you were wrapping birthday present, but instead of folding the triangle up, fold it down and under.

Repeat this with the opposite side.

Now turn the package upside down and you will find that it is actually right side up. You can secure the edges with little sticks hand-fashioned from bamboo, or you can just use a tooth pick. Now you start cooking with banana leaves.