Vazhaipoo/Banana flower Vadai

Vazhaipoo is one of the most nutrious vegetable which comes from the Banana family. Although this has so much good stuffs in it, the taste doesn't make it a favorite for many. I think this dish serves for those who avoids this wonderful food just for taste.

This is one of the most common dish made with Vazhaipoo. Also we can make kootu and poriyal with added coconut for a healthy dish with a better taste. The tough part in this is the cleaning of the flower, where the semen has to be removed. This has to be done ahead of time and soaked in salted thin buttermilk for a couple of hours to remove the bitterness.

This is a forerunner for all vegetable vadais. As we can add any other vegetable like cabbage, cauliflower, tofu etc to make vegetable vadais.



Ingredients

Vazhaipoo florets-2 cups, chopped
Onions - 1 chopped
Curry & coriander leaves
salt
Oil - to deep fry

To coarsely grind
Chana Dal - 1 cup (soaked for min 2 hrs)
Red chilly - 2
Ginger - 1 inch
Garlic - 3 pods
Fennel seeds - 1 tsp

Procedure:

1. Coarsely grind the ingredients as mentioned with no water

2. To this mix with chipped florets, onions, curry leaves, cilantro and salt. The batter should be thick to make balls of it

3. Heat oil in a pan to deep fry

4. Make small balls of the batter, flatten them and drop them in oil

5. Fry on medium flame till golden brown on both sides

6. Remove from oil and place on tissue to absorb excess oil

7. serve hot