- My God, it's definitely...
Oh, no.
Huh.
Mm-mm.
(upbeat music)
Hey, guys.
It's Candice from The Edgy Veg,
and today on Hacked, I'm gonna test out this banana peels
as mock meat trend that I've been seeing on the internet.
(chomping)
Hacked is a series on my channel
where I take internet hacks and really weird recipes
and test them out, so that you don't have to.
So I've been seeing this trend of taking banana peels
and turning it into mock meats for vegans and vegetarians.
I've seen it as pulled pork.
I've even seen it as bacon, and I'm not gonna lie.
I'm super skeptical.
But some people are saying that it's amazing,
and other people are saying it's trash.
So I wanted to test this out and see if it works,
'cause if it works, I'd rather you guys find out here
and then you try it at home.
And if it's trash, I'd also rather you guys find out here
and not make it at home
and waste a bunch of great ingredients.
So I found a recipe for, what is this?
Banana Peel Pulled Pork from The Stingy Vegan.
So I'm just gonna follow her recipe line by line,
test this out, give it a fair shot.
Personally, I think this is gonna be terrible.
But maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
So the whole key here is get unripe banana peels.
So this is, it's still kinda green, this banana peel,
and that's going to be the base of our mock meat,
which I guess we are seasoning
with all of these different spices.
And then of course, barbecue sauce,
and throwing it onto a sandwich.
I guess let's just jump into this potential catastrophe.
All right, so I have her recipe up here.
The first thing I'm going to do before I start
kind of shrebbing, shrebbing, shredding the banana peels
is just get the spices in a bowl together
to create the marinade.
So let's just go down the line here.
We are going to make a marinade with
olive oil, paprika, chili powder, dry mustard,
garlic powder, onion powder, cumin.
So all of the normal spices that I would use
to make pulled pork out of like jackfruit, for example.
So that seems to make sense.
So let's start there.
So we're doing one and a half tablespoons of olive oil.
I'm just gonna do two
because I don't have a half a tablespoon.
I never know what people mean when they say that
'cause half a tablespoon isn't really a measurement.
Then one teaspoon of paprika.
Three quarter, these are really strange amounts.
Three quarter teaspoons of chili powder.
So one, two.
It's almost time to buy more chili powder.
Three.
Then we have three quarter teaspoons of dry mustard.
Three quarter teaspoons of garlic powder.
And about three quarter teaspoons of onion powder.
Get in there.
There we go.
And a quarter teaspoon of cumin.
So that's our marinade.
It doesn't seem like a lot, but there we go.
Now that we have our marinade,
and I did the marinade first
so as I cut, or shred, I guess, the peels,
I can just throw them right in there
and they can start marinating.
So apparently, you have to slice the top and bottom off
the banana, remove the peels, scrape the white part off,
and then shred it with a fork, so.
And you can save these peels,
or the actual bananas on the inside.
Just like freeze them and use them for smoothies.
So you don't have to waste it.
We're gonna cut the top and bottom off of the peel.
All right, and this is saying two bananas.
So I have to do two of these.
Using a spoon, scrape the white parts out.
'Cause I guess this is where the bitter flavor comes from.
To be honest, a week ago, I really didn't think
this is how I would be spending my Friday,
trying to make edible food out of kitchen scraps.
Okay.
And then, using a fork,
you're supposed to be able to just shred it.
False.
I guess I have to press harder.
Oh, there we go.
Okay.
This is really time-consuming.
I wouldn't make this
just based on how much time this is taking, and I'm lazy.
And then cut it into two- to three-inch.
So is that like that?
Sure.
Okay.
And I throw it in the marinade.
So we have these little banana strips.
Let's do this with the rest of the bananas.
Though I've seen this recipe kind of bounce around
the internet.
I saw that Julien Solomita did this,
but I didn't watch the video
'cause I didn't want him to influence my reaction.
I kind of just wanted to go in like genuinely blind,
not knowing if it's good or not.
I'll probably watch it as soon as we're done filming this,
so that I see if our reactions are the same.
All right, so I have thrown together
just a quick, easy slaw for our sandwich
while our banana peels are marinating.
Now let's go to the stove and cook these guys up.
It says that the cooking time
will depend on how ripe the banana peels are.
That's not very helpful.
There's like no guide.
Well, she says about five to 10 minutes.
Mine were super unripe,
so it probably will take about 10 minutes.
But she doesn't want us to cook them until they're mushy.
So I'm gonna have to like go in and like,
I guess, taste them as we go.
I'm scared.
Anyway, let's go do this, get it over with,
and see how this tastes.
So I have the pan that's heated at like medium-high heat.
I'm gonna throw this right into the pan.
And then she says to add a little bit of water
to help the banana peels steam.
And then we just cook that for about five to 10 minutes.
Well, all I can smell is paprika and chili powder.
I was kind of expecting the banana peels
to not remain green.
So I find that mildly offensive.
I also feel like people that stereotype vegans,
this is like what they think that we eat.
So I find that mildly offensive.
I'm skeptical, like really skeptical.
I don't know.
I'm not convinced.
My God, it's definitely not cooked enough.
Nope, definitely not.
Definitely not ready.
Now I'm even more scared.
That was awful.
I'm just gonna add the two tablespoons of barbecue sauce.
I feel like the trick here is that the barbecue sauce
is supposed to mask the terrible flavor of the banana peel.
I'm still very skeptical.
So I'm gonna add a little bit more than
two tablespoons of barbecue sauce, because I feel like
we need all the help we can get right now.
And then she says cook it for another 30 seconds
so that the barbecue sauce flavor marinates
into the banana peel.
I mean, if I'm perfectly honest,
like I don't think it's gonna help it much,
but, you know, I really try to be open-minded here.
But then I tasted it, and it was awful.
So she says to add a pinch of salt.
Again, skeptical.
(beeping)
Oh, the timer's ready.
Yay, I'm so excited to plate this and try it.
Let it cool for a moment.
I've done this.
Put it onto a bun and then top it with slaw.
I would be lying
if I told you that I wasn't a little afraid.
Maybe the flavor of the slaw will mask the
atrocity I'm about to try on camera for you
because I love you guys.
This is how much I love you guys.
I'm just gonna go for it.
Okay, it kind of just tastes like barbecue sauce.
The texture is (bleep)-ed.
It's like chewy.
I don't like the texture, but it's not bad.
I'm very pleasantly surprised.
Yeah, the texture's awful.
I'm a weird texture person.
It's the same reason why I don't eat bananas.
Like, I can't like peel a banana and eat a banana.
Not because I like am a pervert, which I am,
but that's not why I can't eat a banana,
but yeah, it's a really weird texture that I don't like.
I'm gonna try it just kind of on its own
without the sandwich bread.
No, mm-mm.
No.
The texture's bad.
Would I make this again?
No.
For one sandwich, that was a stupid amount of work,
and I just don't have time for that.
So I would not make this again.
But if you wanted to try something different
and you have extra time on your hands, I'd say try it.
It's stuck in my teeth.
It gets stuck in your teeth
like corn gets stuck in your teeth
when you eat it off the cob.
It tastes like barbecue sauce.
It tastes, yeah, like barbecue sauce on a sandwich,
with coleslaw.
So yeah, it's not awful.
And if you like barbecue sauce,
then I guess you'll like this.
It was a fun thing to try out for you.
And I'm very pleasantly surprised.
I thought that there was going to be like this gross,
bitter banana.
It's really stuck in my teeth.
Can you see that it's stuck in my teeth?
I thought it was going to have this weird,
bitter, banana-peel flavor, and it actually doesn't.
And that's my verdict.
If you want to make another pulled pork recipe,
use the jackfruit recipe.
It will not take you nine years for one sandwich.
That is probably my biggest complaint about this recipe.
I put out two videos on that.
One was just a few weeks ago,
so you can just find it on my channel,
and on my blog as well, but I don't know.
If you have nothing else to do with your evening, try it.
All right, guys, there you have it.
I tested out the banana peel pulled pork sandwich
so you don't have to.
Again, I give it like a six out of 10.
It's okay.
Just too much work for me.
If you are new here, and you like this series,
make sure that you hit the Subscribe button.
If you have a hack that you want me to test out,
leave it in the comment section below.
And if you like this series,
give it the video a big thumbs-up.
And I will see you guys next time.
Bye.