Puso ng Saging Pâté (Banana Blossom Pâté)

I am replicating this after eating at Café Bola. Friends whom I had for dinner couldn’t figure out how this could come from the often neglected puso ng saging or banana blossom (but if you take the Filipino equivalent literally, banana heart), that’s only known to be used as one of those vegetables in dishes like kare-kare. It’s a fairly simple pâté, so I said even I could make it myself. They challenged me, and here is my version, and thankfully they liked it better than the one in Café Bola.


1 medium-sized Puso ng Saging, peeled-off its thick outer shell, cut into small ½ inch rounds
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
5 large basil leaves
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Place cut banana blossom in a pot full of boiling water, cover for about five minutes, or until banana blossom is cooked. Drain the water.

Place olive oil in a frying pan under low heat. Add the garlic and let it simmer until the flavor rises.

Add the banana blossom and season with salt and pepper. Try breaking them down into smaller pieces as you stir. Keep stirring for about three minutes or until the oil has been distributed to the whole mixture. Turn the heat off.

Dump the mixture in the blender or a food processor along with the grated parmesan cheese and the basil leaves, and mash to a pulp. Season with salt and pepper and more olive oil if needed.


If you don't have banana blossom where you live, you probably have artichokes. That will be a good substitute. It can be used a lot of ways. You can use it as topping for crackers like what I did with the photo somewhere in the middle of this post. You can add them to salads. Or use as a vegetable bed for steamed fish. I like it in my pan de sal (literally salted bread in Spanish), or small round breads. The only downside to it is that when we ate at Café Bola again a few weeks ago, they didn’t want to order this anymore and they insisted I make some soon.