It took two hours for me to cleaning this vazhaipoo / banana flower :-) Yes!!! It is really a time consuming process but at the end wow...we can make a delicious food :-) Here in World Food Market I could get vazhaipoo often but I am trying to make this atleast monthly once coz of its health benefits. It is very boring to clean this, but I always do in my leisure time. We can't clean and make this when we are in hurry. I Cleaned and kept in fridge and the next day I did this usili.
In Tamil Nadu we get very fresh vazhaipoo and my Appayi (My dad's mom) makes this often. My mom buy two vazhaipoo coz for me and my brother :-) We always fight to have the vazhaipoo muttai / vazhaipoo kuruthu which is the smallest remain at the end. We can eat raw as it is very good for stomach and it is good in taste too :-)
Appayi add murungai keerai / drumstick leaves when she makes poriyal and it will be scrumptious. I was looking for the keerai but I could not get it :-( When you make vazhaipoo poriyal try adding murungaikeerai which gives extra flavour and taste and healthy too.
INGREDIENTS:
Vazhaipoo - 1
Butter milk - 1/4 cup
Oil - 1 tsp
Salt - as needed
To grind:
Channa dhal - 1/2 cup
Red chillies - 3 to 4
To temper:
Oil - 2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Urad dhal - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Asafoetida - a pinch
HOW TO MAKE:
Soak channa dhal and red chillies for 20 to 30 mins.
Before you start cleaning the flower either grease your hands with oil or wear gloves. Vazhaipoo leaves stains on your hand when you clean to avoid that you can use either one as above. (The stains will go off in two to three days) Separate the flower petals one by one to take out the edible flowers. When you remove the petal you can see the beautiful flower inside as shown below.
Take out the flowers in hand and just rub on the top of it so we can remove the part which we do not need. In the second picture you can see the part which you need to remove it and do remove it from the flower in each part.
Once you remove all the unwanted parts from the flower chop them finely.
You can eat the remain raw part which comes at the end or chop them too finely. I recommend to eat this and I gave it to my kids. They loved it :-)
Take a bowl of water and add the butter milk and mix well. Immerse the chopped flower in the butter milk water and that will help the flower to get lessen the blackening effect.
Wash the chopped flower and drain the water. Heat a tsp of oil in a kadai and add chopped banana flower. Add little salt since we are going to add in the dhal too. Add little water and let the banana flower get cooked.
In a mixie / blender and coarsely grind soaked channa dhal and red chillies together.
Heat oil in a kadai splutter mustard seeds add urad dhal and asafoetida. Add curry leaves. Add grounded paste.
Stir well to avoid lumps avoid lumps. Stir often and soon it will leave the raw flavour and you can see it will turn into a coarse powder kind off. Add little salt and do remember that you have added in vazhaipoo too. At that time add cooked vazhaipoo.
At that time add cooked vazhaipoo. Mix well and cook for 3 to 4 mins.
Enjoy with any rice and it is a best combo for kara kuzhambu and sambar :-) You can mix this usili in a steamed rice on the top of ghee :-) It's yummmmm!!!
TIPS:
I cooked grounded paste directly to less work. You can steam the grounded paste in the idly plate and then once it cool down you can make a coarse powder in the mixie / blender.
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