Breadcrumbs, bananas and three minutes of bliss

When you need a quick distraction and a sweet ending, this recipe is it.

I found myself toasting panko breadcrumbs the other night, standing over the stove, swirling the pale bits with butter, watching them go from light beige to a crisp, nutty brown.

I discovered the wonders of toasted panko a few months into the pandemic. When the world felt like it was coming apart at the seams, when sourdough and even banana bread felt like too much to take on, toasted panko became my go-to.

As I wrote in USA Today in October 2020, “I've sprinkled toasted panko on salads (hello teeny-tiny croutons) and bowls of that Instant Pot chili I keep on rotation. It's wonderful over steamed/grilled vegetables. It's the perfect addition to a simple piece of sauteed fish.”

Toasted panko really can make anything better, including ice cream (!!!), and wild, hectic, complicated weeks like this past one.

Watching the panko cook, stirring it and folding it over to keep it from burning, I slipped into that food trance, that Zen state that made me fall in love with cooking way back when. For a few quiet minutes, that panko was all that mattered. It wasn’t the level of distraction required for, say, rolling lumpia or folding egg whites into a souffle. It was just a few minutes of devoted concentration, a couple hundred seconds where I couldn’t think about anything else.

If you could use a few minutes of similar distraction, along with a sweet, sweet payoff at the end, may I sincerely recommend this toasted panko banana split. I can’t guarantee it’ll make your day/week/month any less hectic, but it will make it more delicious.

Toasted Panko Banana Split

This recipe originally ran on news-press.com Oct. 13, 2020

For the toasted panko

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

Directions: Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Add butter or oil (I like a mix of both). Once the butter starts to sizzle, or the oil is shimmering, add breadcrumbs. Stir to thoroughly incorporate the fat, then continue stirring as the panko begins to toast. This is not a time to walk away or get sucked down a social-media rabbit hole. Unattended panko will burn, and once burned you will be forced to start again.

For the banana split

Ingredients

1-2 tablespoons Nutella (to make it warm and gooey, pop it in a microwave-safe dish and nuke for 10-15 seconds)

1 banana, cut in half lengthwise

2-3 scoops of ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, sea-salt caramel; dealer’s choice)

¼ cup toasted panko breadcrumbs

Directions: You don't need any, but I like to start with the Nutella as a kind of glue to keep the banana in place. Layer on the ice cream, maybe some more Nutella, sprinkle on the toasted panko and eat up. Or go wild with berries, sprinkles, mochi, caramel sauce, etc. The sink-ful of dishes you'll be stuck cleaning later is your limit!