Nazionale giorno

Last Wednesday, my partners and I closed shop and escaped to our preferito isola di Bintan for a National Day company retreat and camped out at the lovely 4-bedroom Angsoka villa at Bintan Lagoon, complete with our own pool and the sandy beach just a hop away. After a very productive hour-long meeting in the pool in our bikinis, we wasted the whole afternoon singing Diana Ross' 'Touch Me In The Morning" in the sea and stuffing our faces at the BBQ pit.

Come Saturday after l'italiana lezione, I caught up with my JC mates S and M (haha) at F's casa which had a killer view of the city and fireworks on display that night. We cooked up a storm - starting with a Nigella's inspired Squid salad, Pasta with tuna, and an impromptu dessert - Baked banana and mango crumble. Ooh, it was buonissimo... F and I had it at a local cafe and decided to whip it up at a whim! Being such culinary geniuses, we got the formula right the first time round, ha! Here's the recipe, for you sweet-toothed peeps:



Baked Banana N' Mango Crumble

Ingredients:
4 large bananas (cut into 2cm slices)
2 ripe mangos (de-seed and cut into long slices)
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp grated cinnamon
30g butter
1 tbsp raisins (optional)
1 tbsp walnuts (optional - crushed roughly)
6 butter shortbread biscuits (crushed into crumbs and mix with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar)

Method:
1. Melt 25g butter on low heat in a nonstick pot and add bananas, brown sugar and honey.
2. When bananas soften in about 1 minute, add the mangos and cinnamon and stir for 1 minute. Remove from fire and empty contents into a baking dish or smaller individual ramekins.
3. Sprinkle with walnuts and raisins. Then cover the mixture generously with the crumbs followed by small knobs of butter on top the crumbs.
4. Baked for 15mins at 180 deg C in a preheated oven. Remove and cool for a while before serving with vanilla ice cream - yummy!