Name: Djibouti Banana Fritters
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 3 well-ripened bananas; 1/2 cup flour; 2 tablespoons sugar dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water; 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Prior to learning about Djibouti, I had no clue how to pronounce it. Apparently, I’m also randomly adding an extra “I” because autocorrect told me my spelling was wrong. Sigh, okay but seriously, it’s an interesting country to learn about and our Djibouti Unit was a great addition to our geography lessons.

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Apparently, you can only find images of the country if you spell its name right. Sigh, I’m feeling rather stupid now.

Djibouti Resources

My search about Djibouti didn’t return much information, but I did find a few general facts information.

All the facts posts more or less shared the same information, with each only adding a new thing or two, but primarily focusing on the unique geography.

And while I didn’t watch the Flag Friday video with my kids, I happily watched it on my own (they do not find the details of the flag as interesting as I do) so I can happily say I learned more in our Djibouti Unit than they did.

Never stop learning.

Also, I’m very amused that the best picture I can find of Djibouti has camels.

Djibouti Recipe: Banana Fritters

Okay, so this was one of those recipes that did not go well.

At all, and I even had The Artist help me try and remake the banana fritters, and they still never quite turned out right.

Let’s talk through how all of these pictures represent things going wrong.

The first batch I attempted to fry it, because fritters are fried. But The Artist pointed out to me this recipe does not say, “fry it in oil,” but instead “oil the pan, and cook them.” So we tried again with significantly less oil (that second picture in the top right), and started cooking them, but they wouldn’t stick together.

No matter what we did they just would not stay together and they kept sticking to the spatula.

I kept saying, “Bananas are a binding agent, if you’re desperate you can substitute them for eggs.” The Artist kept looking at me like I was crazy, and decided to try remaking the recipe.

So, with the second remade recipe with double the flour of the original recipe, we made one in a pan, and then I suggested we could cook it on the skillet and cook them all at once.

Which did not go well. First I had it turned up too high, and then the coconut oil that worked well in the pan did not work well on the skillet, and then they just wouldn’t cook.

At the end of it all, I had a few Djibouti banana fritters that didn’t look absolutely terrible to get pictures of.

So, if you’re an expert at making banana pancakes, because that’s what these ended up being more like, give me your tips.

Djibouti banana fritters ingredients

3 nice and ripe bananas
1/2 cup flour (you could substitute out rice flour, that was also listed in the original recipe)
2 tablespoons sugar dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water (I only made the water warm to make it easier to dissolve the sugar)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Djibouti banana fritters recipe dessert breakfast Africa

Put it together!

Mash the bananas with a fork (or like I did, a pastry cutter, that works so much better).
Add the flour, the sugar dissolved in water, and nutmeg. Mix it all together, and it should have a pancake consistency.
Cook like a pancake in a pan coated with oil until golden brown.

Yield: 12 small fritters

Djibouti Banana Fritters

These Djibouti banana fritters are great to eat with your family as you study Djibouti.

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Ingredients

3 well-ripened bananas
1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions

Mash the bananas with a pastry cutter.
Add the flour, sugar dissolved in water, and nutmeg. Mix well until it has a pancake-like consistency.
Coat the pan with oil and heat to medium heat. Cook like pancakes until it has a golden brown consistency.

Djibouti Notebooking pages

As we filled out our Africa notebooking pages, I was amused to find most of the information again was focusing on the geography, and less on the culture.

I don’t really blame them it was an unusual country.

But there’s a good reason why most people talk about the geography of Djibouti.

It’s location at the bend of the Horn of Africa makes everyone want to have a military base there.
It has some crazy weird geography, including two salt lakes, one of which is almost as salty as the Dead Sea.
They have their own version of the Bermuda Triangle with Demon Island, which supposedly if you go there, you come back not quite the same. This fascinates me.

All in all, an interesting country.

More great learning fun

“26th MEU Djibouti LCAC Landings [Image 2 of 15]” by DVIDSHUB is marked with CC BY 2.0.

Djibouti Unit