Paleo Recipe: Baked Turon

Since I finished my Whole30 at the end of April, I’ve been hanging out online at the Whole30 forums, getting to know some of the people in the program. One of my online acquaintances there requested that I come up with a Paleo version of turon, or Filipino fried banana crêpe. (She called it “banana lumpia,” or banana spring roll, which I guess is what they call it in Hawaii, where she lives.) She asked in jest, making it sound like a demand (you were just joking about this being an order, right AmyS?), but I do like a challenge every now and then. So I took it on and came up with this.

It was pretty good, if I may say so myself. Of course, it’s totally not compliant for Whole30, but it is Paleo (and it’s made up of all Whole30-approved ingredients), so it’ll be nice to have when I go off-roading from my diet every once in a while.

The lumpia wrapper recipe below is from the site Paleo Plan. Just want to make sure I’m acknowledging that up front.

Ingredients

For the lumpia wrapper (adapted from Paleo Plan) –

• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 large egg
• pinch of sea salt
• coconut oil

For the turon –

• 3 very ripe (as in with black spots all over) saging na saba (aka sweet plantain, or saba banana), peeled and cut in half lengthwise 
• (If necessary, you can use very ripe regular plantains instead, or just ripe regular bananas – these are usually longer, so just cut them up so you end up with 6 strips 1 or 1 1/2 inches wide, half an inch deep, and 5-6 inches long) 
• 6 pieces of jackfruit, chopped up (optional)
• 1/3 cup melted ghee (clarified butter)
• cinnamon

Instructions

For the lumpia wrapper (adapted from Paleo Plan) –

1. Mix all the lumpia wrapper ingredients well in a bowl, except for the oil.
2. Grease a large pan lightly with coconut oil and heat it up in medium heat.
3. Once the oil is hot but not smoking, pour in about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the mixture and tilt the pan in all directions to spread the batter very thinly. The aim is to make a wrapper about 8 inches in diameter.
4. Cook both sides until very lightly brown (2-3 minutes on each side).
5. Repeat until you use up your batter, re-greasing the pan as necessary. This will yield about 6 lumpia wrappers. Put aside your wrappers to cool.

For the turon –

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. With a basting brush, brush your saging na saba pieces with ghee on all sides.
3. Place one saging na saba piece on your first wrapper. Sprinkle some of the chopped jackfruit on top of the saging na saba. Dust both fruits with a generous amount of cinnamon.
4. Fold the wrapper snugly over the fruits to form a roll. Dab some ghee on the edges and use it to seal the turon like an envelope. (There are lots of ways to roll a lumpia – check YouTube if you’d like to see some demonstrations. But it really doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as the turon is rolled tight.)
5. Brush your turon on all sides with ghee, and dust all sides with a generous amount of cinnamon. Then place it on a baking tray with parchment paper (or on a baking rack on top of a tray, or on a tray with aluminum foil).
6. Repeat procedure with the rest of your saging na saba till you have about six turones on your baking tray. Keep them spaced apart so they are not touching.
7. Place the tray in the oven and bake until the turones are crispy, about 15-20 minutes. (If baking on aluminum foil, turn the turones over at midway point.)
8. Remove from oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then dig in!

Alternative cooking method: You can also deep fry the turones in hot coconut oil for 3-4 minutes, rotating it once halfway. This will make for crispier turones for sure, the way they normally are. I don’t like deep frying generally, since it uses up so much oil, so I opted for this baking method instead.

Makes 3 servings. Douse with some fruit purée, if you like. Or, if you really want to go wild, serve with Paleo ice cream.

How this is Paleo

The usual rice or corn starch lumpia wrapper has been replaced with a tapioca flour-based crêpe. No sugar was added; the typical turon is smothered in brown sugar and cooked till the sugar is caramelized. (Technically speaking, you can add some sweeteners such as maple syrup, honey, or, yes, brown muscovado sugar to the recipe and it would still be within the bounds of Paleo, but I’ve been off added sugar for a month and a half and this was plenty sweet for me.) All oils used are Paleo-approved; no hydrogenated oils were used in the making of this dish.

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