Hyma's Flavours: Vazhaipoo(banana flower) Vadai...the diet way...no deep fry

Let me tell u upfront...this super delicious, healthy recipe is only for the patient cooks out there! If you are in a hurry, then this is not for you:-) All this cos, bringing this vegetable to its edible state takes atleast an hour after which you need to spend atleast 45 minutes to prepare the crispy vada...so, are you ready for the magic....;-)

First let me go over on, how to bring the vegetable to its edible state..:-) I have added some pics to make the understanding easier. Preferably do this the earlier day to save you time...

- Keep a bowl of very thin buttermilk ready. Once you cut the flower, drop them into this buttermilk so that it retains it color.

- Coat your palm and fingers with some sesame oil or coconut oil to keep your hands from staining.

- Peel the skin of the veggie by layers and remove the flower stalks from inside each layer of skin.

The flower with it stamen

The flower to be chopped- after removing the stamen

- Every bunch of flower would have Stamens(Kalaan) with a black head as shown in the pic below. This needs to be removed before cutting the rest.

The stamen removed

- Once you get to the inner most layer of the veggie, the flower becomes tender and these will not have the Stamen. So, no worries...:-)

The tender flower that can be chopped directly

Ingredients:

- Cut veggie soaked in thin buttermilk

- 1/4 cup Toor dhal

- 1/4 cup Channa dhal (Kadalai paruppu)

- 3-4 red chillies

- 1/8 tsp turmeric

- 1/8 tsp hing

- Salt to taste

- Curry leaves

Preparation:

- Strain the cut veggies and boil them in water with salt added for taste. Once the veggie has boiled drain the water and let the veggie cool

- Soak the Toor dhal and Channa dhal in water for 30 mins

- Grind coarsely, the soaked dhals with the red chillies, turmeric, hing and salt to taste.

- Mix the boiled veggie to the dhal paste and make small patties of the same in the shape of vada.

- Place the vada's on greased idli plates and steam them about 10 mins

- Once done, place the idli plates outside the steamer

- In a non stick pan, add 2 tbsp of oil and splutter some mustard and urad dhal. Add the curry leaves to this and then arrange the steamed vadas on the pan.