Vazhaipoo Pakoda Recipe | Banana Flower Fritters
Vazhaipoo Pakoda, a delicious, crispy and spicy fritters made with banana flower, gram flour, rice flour and spices. A crunchy snack to relish with hot tea/coffee. Learn here how to make this recipe with step by step pictures, video and instructions.
Servings: 4 people
Calories: 120kcal
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Heavy Bottomed Pan
Ingredients
- 1 small Vazhaipoo (Banana flower) approximately 2 cups of florets.
- ½ Cup Gram Flour (Besan / Chickpea Flour) 1 Cup - 250ml
- 2 tablespoon Rice Flour
- ¾ teaspoon Salt Adjust as needed
- 1 teaspoon Red Chili Powder
- 1 pinch Asafoetida (Asafetida / Hing)
- Few Curry leaves
- 2 tablespoon Coriander Leaves Chopped
- 2 nos Green Chili Chopped
- 2 teaspoon Ghee
- 2 Cups Oil For Deep Frying
Instructions
PREPARING BANANA FLOWER FOR COOKING:
- The tricky part is to remove the stamen which is nothing but a hard pink layer found in each florets. This stamen never gets cooked and hence we need to remove the same from the florets. You can easily remove the stamen from the top layers of the florets as the stamen is visible. But once you approach the inner layers, the florets are covered and hence removal of the stamen is little bit difficult. Here is the tip.. you can hold the bunch of florets on your left hand and rub the face of the florets on your right hand. This will open up the florets and you can remove the stamen easily. You might notice that the color of the bract was in dark pink color when you start the removal of the stamen and once you approach the inner portion the color of the bract changes from dark pink color to the yellow and finally end up with small white bulb. You can stop removing the stamen at this point as the florets in the inner portion will be more tender. You can cut the flower directly without removing the bracts or stamen.
- Add the stamen removed florets in a bowl full of water to prevent de-colorization.
Preparing Pakoda mixture
- In a mixing bowl, take the besan, rice flour, salt, asafoetida and red chili powder.
- To the bowl, now add curry leaves, coriander leaves, banana flower florets and ghee.
- Mix everything well. We can see the flours starts to coat the florets. Sprinkle water if needed to coat each floret properly. Vazhaipoo Pakoda mixture ready!
Deep Frying
- Heat oil in a pan. Drop a pinch of pakoda mixture to check if the oil is ready. If the pakoda mixture rises up, then the oil is ready.
- Take the pakoda mixture, before dropping, try to crumble and gently add it to hot oil.
- Keep the flame in low and allow the pakoda to fry till its golden brown. Remove the fried pakoda from oil and place in paper towel to drain excess oil. In the same way, fry the rest of pakoda mixture.
Serving
- Relish this crunchy Vazhaipoo Pakoda with hot coffee/tea!
Video
Nutrition
Serving: 1Cup | Calories: 120kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 2g