Curry banana with rice and vegetables

A basic sauce is formed with equal parts butter and flour with milk added slowly to thicken. Stop adding milk when desired thickness is achieved. Make it a little thinner than you expect because it'll continue to thicken as it cools. In this case I used bacon grease because I just fried bacon for the rice, so why bother with butter when I already have all that super wonderful bacon grease? A quarter cup of diced onion is included with the roux. Chile powder and curry powder and salt are also included with the roux. It all forms a hot sizzling paste into which milk is added carefully while stirring. It all happens so quickly, you mustn't turn your back on this or you'll lose control.

In another pot the rice is cooking by the usual technique, except this time the rice was fried in oil first because I wanted the grains to separate when everything else was added to them. I fried the raw rice grains in the steaming pot until they started to turn brown in just enough oil to cover them, then dumped in the water. Twice as much water by volume than rice. It boils madly right off, so slam on the lid and cut the heat to low as your stove will go. It steams covered for 25 minutes on low then the heat was cut off entirely, and still covered, it continues to steam for another 10 minutes. Getting the rice started first allows the time to do all the other cutting and sautéing and sauce making.

The vegetables intended for the rice were already sautéed concurrently with the sauce. So this whole thing messed up one little pot and two small sauté pans. When the rice was done  the sautéed vegetables were added to the pot along with the herbs (cilantro and parsley) and the diced raw tomato.

This stuff was so ... so ... so ... good. The whole idea of a banana with pork and vegetables is just bizarre, and yet I can not wait to try it again. Except next time, I'm using a lot less chile powder.