Cartola is a Pernambuco dessert: fried banana, melted grilling cheese (queijo coalho) or queijo de manteiga, and a thick dust of sugar and cinnamon. Halloumi is the US stand-in for coalho. If the shop is empty, homemade queijo coalho. It belongs on a northeastern table after the meat. It is not savory plantain (banana-da-terra).
If queijo coalho and queijo de manteiga are both missing, halloumi still covers the plate.
The banana
The traditional fruit is banana prata, ripe. That is a silver banana, smaller and tangier than a Cavendish. In a US store buy ripe yellow bananas that still hold a slice, or use plantain only if prata is missing, and say so.
Ingredients (4 plates)
- 4 ripe bananas prata, peeled and halved lengthwise
- 2 tablespoons (30 g) bottled Brazilian butter (manteiga de garrafa), or melted salted butter
- 4 thick slices queijo coalho or queijo de manteiga, about 7 oz/ 200 g (halloumi if that is what you can buy)
- 1 cup (200 g) crystal or granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons (16 g) ground cinnamon
The sugar-and-cinnamon mix is meant to be generous. It covers the plate and people eat the extra with the banana.
Method
- Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.
- Fry the banana halves in the butter over medium heat until both sides are well browned, 2 to 4 minutes per side. Move them to the serving plates.
- Melt the cheese in the same pan, a splash of milk only if it sticks, until it is soft enough to drape. Cover each banana completely.
- Spoon the sugar-cinnamon over the cheese so it piles on the plate.
- Serve at once. Cartola does not hold.
How you know it’s done
Both sides of the banana are well browned. The cheese is soft enough to drape. Serve at once. Cartola does not hold.
After a churrasco
Make it when the last meat comes off. The grate is the wrong place for the cheese-and-sugar finish. Toasted cassava flour (farofa) and Brazilian tomato-onion sauce (vinagrete) stay on the savory side of the table.
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