Banana Flower Patties / Vaazhaipoo Vadai

Vaazhaipoo/Banana flower patties are a healthy and best starter. Every part of the plantain tree has its own health benefits and most of them are edible. Cleaning of banana flower is considered as a labourious job and takes time. I often ignore to buy this vegetable from the market as I think it as “too much work” but manage to buy atleast once in a month considering its health benefits. 

For cleaning the banana flower, the petals of a plantain flower are opened and the edible portion is taken out by hand. In each flower, the front small petal part and the stamen part is discarded as it is not gets digested easily. This is a slightly messy job, but the end product is awesome.

Ingredients:

Banana flower –  1 whole flower (chopped flowers measured about 3 cups tightly packed)

Chanadhal – 100 gms

Onion – 1 big

Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Coriander leaves – 2 tbsp (finely chopped)

Ginger – 1 inch piece

Green chilli – 2 nos

Garam masala – 1 tsp

Fennel seeds – 1 tsp

Salt – to taste

Oil – for deep frying

Method:

1. Clean the vaazhaipoo / banana flower and rinse well in water.
2. Chop it using chopper (I used kenwood mini chopper).
3. Soak the chanadhal overnight and then rinse well.
4. In a mixie, add the soaked chanadhal, fennel seeds, ginger and garam masala.
5. Grind it into a coarse paste and keep it aside.
6. In a large mixing bowl, add the chopped banana flower/vazhaipoo, ground chanadhal mixture,finely chopped onions, chopped greenchillis, chopped curry leaves, coriander leaves and required salt.
7. Mix everything well and let it rest for few mins.
8. Then make it into patties and deep fry in oil.                 
9. Hot and crispy banana flower patties are ready now.