Banana Flower Curry / Arati Puvvu Aava Koora

Hi Buddies,

Back with an authentic recipe from my ammamma’s cookbook. Recently, I found banana flower in grocery store and it reminded me of my granny’s yummy dish. Tried it last weekend after I got the recipe from her. It came out very well and even aashu loved it 🙂 . It has many health benefits too. Check this link  for Banana Flower Health Benefits more details. Only difficultly in preparing this is sorting the banana blossom but it’s worth doing .I did this activity on previous day itself and made the dish next day. Hope you guys too would like it!!!

Preparation Time:  40 minutes
No of Servings: 4

Ingredients:
Aarati Puvvu/ Banana Flower: 1
Turmeric: pinch
Green Chili: 1
Ginger: Small piece
Mustard Seeds: 2 tbsp.
Tamarind Pulp: Big gooseberry size.
Red Chili: 1
Chana Dal: 1 tbsp.
Urad Dal: 1 tbsp.
Cumin Seeds: 1 tsp.
Mustard Seeds: 1 tsp.
Curry Leaves: Few
asafoetida: pinch
Oil: 3 tbsp.
Salt: As per taste
Water: 3-4 tbsp.

Method:

• Take a banana blossom and remove each petal and you can see flower bunch at the bottom.

• Take each of them and remove stamen and sepal as shown below.

• Repeat this for the entire blossom.

• Chop them into small pieces (my granny does this in stone mortar but you can even use blender).

• Wash them 5-6 times in turmeric water to remove bitterness.

• Cook them in a vessel for 15 minutes  along with turmeric and little salt(You can even microwave it for 10 minutes).

• Squeeze out extra water from it.

• Heat a pan with 3 tbsp. of oil and add chana dal , urad dal to it. Later, add turmeric, cumin and mustard seeds and when they start crackling, add curry leaves and hing.
• Add chopped ginger and green chili to it. Fry it for a minute.
• Finally add banana flower and salt to it.
• Cook it for 5 minutes on low flame.

• Add tamarind pulp made from big gooseberry size tamarind to the curry and cook it for 2 more minutes.

• Meanwhile, blend mustard seeds along with little salt and red chili.
• Add some water and make it as a paste.

• Add this paste to the curry and turn off the stove (Don’t keep it on flame after adding mustard paste, as this makes the curry bitter).
• Wait for 30 minutes before serving (as curry absorbs the mustard flavor by then).

• Serve it with rice.