Usually Banana stem, leaves and fruits are used or consumed in our day today life. Banana flower is consumed rarely because it involves tedious job of cleaning before cooking it also it tastes sometimes bitter. My mom used to say that we need to ask for red banana flower otherwise thenvaalai (karpooravalli) banana flower to the grocer. But now a days we buy groceries in air conditioned shops so we blindly pick the fruits & veggies which are clean and attractive to our eyes. But not all the flowers are bitter.
Banana flower vada is very tasty and my family loves it so I don’t mind the task of cleaning it when it has loads of nutrients and health benefits for ladies. It can be had as a snack or can be served as side dish for rasam, curd or sambar. Lets get started with the recipe of making vadai.
⏲PREP TIME : 30 minutes
⏲COOK TIME : 30 minutes
🥘 CUISINE : Indian
🍴COURSE : side dish / snack
🥗 YIELD : 25 vadas
HOW TO CLEAN THE FLOWER :
Remove the style and the transparent shell shown in the picture below.
INGREDIENTS REQUIRED :
Channa dhal – 1 cup
Banana flower – 1 (cleaned & chopped)
Ginger – 1 inch
Fried gram – 3 to 4 tsp
Fennel seeds – 1& 1/2 tsp
Green chillies/ red chillies – 6 to 7
Small onions – 1/2 cup (chopped)
Coriander leaves – little
Salt as required
METHOD :
Soak Channa dhal for 2 hours ,drain and keep aside.
Cleaned, chopped florets are put in buttermilk for a while.
In a mixer jar grind fennel seeds, drained florets, chillies, ginger, Channa dhal, fried gram and salt.
(Keep aside 2 tbsp Channa dhal before grinding to add to final batter )
To the ground mixture, add 2 tbsp channa dhal, chopped onions and coriander leaves and mix well.
Make balls, flatten the vadas in palm .
Deep fry the vadas until crisp in medium flame.
Hot vadas are ready to serve.
NOTE:
You can even skip the onions.
Added fried gram to absorb the moisture and to have oil free vada.
Rice flour can also be added instead of fried gram.
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