Vazhaipoo Pakoda, Banana Flower Fritters

          Whenever we drive from Bangalore to Chennai, we usually make a break in between at a restaurant, and we usually have some snack and coffee there. The one snack that we have had on all the times we stopped there, is this Vazhaipoo Pakoda, my daughter just loves it. The pakoda is so crispy and the vazhaipoo/banana flower/kele ke phool gives a nice taste to the pakodas. Usually in other restaurants, you'll find vazhaipoo vadai and cutlets but this pakora, I have not tasted anywhere else. I wanted to make it at home, I didn't have any recipe, so I just made it according to the taste that I remembered, asked my daughter to taste and waited for her verdict. She gave me a thumbs up, the pakoras tasted very good and I should say 99% close to the taste of the pakoras from the restaurant. Do try this the next time you buy banana flower, I am sure you'll love it..

Need To Have

• Vazhaipoo - 21/2 cups
• Chana Dal/Bengal Gram - 1/2 cup
• Dried Red Chillies - 4
• Garlic Cloves - 2 big
• Fennel Seeds - 2 teaspoons
• Rice Flour - 1 tablespoon
• Turmeric Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Curry Leaves - a big handful
• Salt to taste

Method

          Wash and soak the chana dal for about 2 hours. Then grind it with red chillies, fennel seeds and garlic into a coarse paste without adding any water.

          Add it to the cleaned, washed and roughly chopped ( lengthwise ) vazhaipoo along with the rice flour, salt, curry leaves and turmeric powder and mix it well.

          Heat some oil for deep frying, take a handful of the mixture and drop it in the oil, spreading it out as you drop. Fry till golden, remove, drain the excess oil and serve it hot.

Note
Cleaning vazhaipoo takes some time, we have to remove the outer big brown petals, you'll see a bunch ( these only mature into bananas ), between each of the brown petals. We have to clean these small ones, remove the center thick stem and the onion like thing. This may sound a little complicated, I'll soon update about this with pictures.
Don't chop the banana flower into small pieces, just chop it coarsely, lengthwise.