Black Pepper Bananas with Palm Sugar and Porridge

This is a lovely and unusual way to serve bananas, which my dad used to make for me with golden syrup. In South India this recipe is known as chenda muriyan, and you’d use jaggery, a lovely caramel-like palm sugar, along with freshly ground black pepper and just a hint of ginger for warmth. But you can use brown sugar, or indeed golden syrup as alternatives. Use bananas which are only just turning ripe from green, as that’ll give the best texture to the finished dish. I like to serve this with porridge.