Today's recipe is a healthy vada with vazhaipoo/ banana flower. Banana flower is one vegetable which I had bought very very rare maybe once or twice before.Although knowing the goodness in it I avoid buying as I was damn sure my kids won't touch it.But If I make any fried snack with it then I was sure it goes well with them.Last week bought a box of peeled flowers from the big basket ( ordering for the first time) keep in mind to make vada with it.but my laziness didn't give time and mood to cook. Somehow I managed to make this healthy fritters for the snack on Tuesday.The difficult part is removing the long stigma in the middle of each flower.Then chopping & grinding are too simple.Here I didn't chop I just added to the dal and ground it.
Preparation time ; 1 hour (includes soaking time)
Cooking time: 5-8 mins per batch
makes; 15-18 vadas
Ingredients:
- Banana flowers- 1 cups
- channa dal/ bengal gram- 3\4 cup
- tur dal /toor dal-1\4 cup
- red chilly-3 r 4
- fennel seeds -1 tsp
- ginger - 1 inch piece
- onion-1 . finely chopped
- curry leaves-few
- salt- to taste
- oil-to deep fry
1.Soak both dal with red chilly for an hour.
2.Meantime from each flower remove the long stigma in the middle and the sepal .Keep the flowers immersed in water to prevent discoloration.
3.When the dal is soaked well drain and add it to a mixer and first grind in to a coarse form( don't add any water).Squeeze water from the flowers and add to it and grind it further along with fennel / saunf seeds.Transfer it to a bowl.
4.Add in chopped onion,ginger and curry leave, mix well.Make balls of it and gently flatten it in the palm.
5.Heat necessary oil and drop the flatten vadai and fry it well on both sides.Transfer to kitchen tissue to drain excess oil.
serve hot as snack for evening tea / coffee,
1.Instead of grinding the flowers you can even chop ,add it to ground batter and fry .But it would be little difficult to make the shape.
