Just back from office and the much awaited weekend started; chilling at home relaxing myself sitting in the favorite spot on the couch. Last few weeks have been very hectic and
transitioning to more commitments and heavier workloads which is making me go
insane. With these tiring days, I could
not justify myself to have a little "me" time. To overcome the guilty feel of not having the
little time for myself, I deliberately pushed myself to get into the mode of
having a little "me" time today before I need to recharge me for
weekend only allocated house chores.
While there are lot of items pending in draft, I chose to
post a healthier stuff which someone could try upon over the weekend -
Vazhaipoo Kola Urundai Kuzhambu. The English translation for his recipe would be Banana Blossom Dumpling gravy. This is a gravy made with a steam-cooked banana blossom dumplings cooked in tamarind sauce. The gravy tastes heavenly with hot steamed
rice.
The prep work is very tedious as you need to clean each
floret of the flower but given the healthy nature it is worth spending time for
it. Since cleaning takes time, I prefer
to make it over weekends where I clean on a Saturday afternoon or at nights
while watching some TV shows after finishing the household work. I usually make Parupu usili with this but
this time DH suggested to make Chettinad dish - Kola urundai kuzhambu. Will write a separate post in detail on how
to clean the banana flower.
INGREDIENTS:
Banana Blossom - 2 cups
Small onion - 1 cup
Tomato - 2
Garlic - few pods
Sambar powder - 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil as needed
To Roast and Grind:
Hing /Asafoetida - a small peppercorn size
Channa dhal - 1 tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
Urad dhal - 1/2 tsp
Peppercorn - 5
Grated coconut - 1/4 cup
Red chilly - 2 tsp
For Tempering:
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few
For Kola Urundais:
Bengal gram - 1 cup (Soaked in water)
Red chilly - 4
Salt - to taste
PREPARATION:
Discard the unwanted parts from the individual florets. Then cut them into small pieces and soak in
buttermilk to avoid turning black.
Soak tamarind in warm water and extract the tamarind juice
from the pulp.
In little oil, roast and grind the ingredients given in the
tempering item list (Hing, channal dhal, red chilly, peppercorn, coriander
seeds, and coconut).
Soak Channal dhal for 1 hour and grind it little coarsely
with red chilly and salt first. Later
add the cut banana blossom and give a pulse.
Make small lemon sized balls, arrange it in a greased idly
plate, and steam it for 12-15 mins in idly plate. Allow it to completely cool before adding to
the gravy.
In a kadai/pan, add oil and sizzle with tempering items, add
small onion and later chopped tomatoes.
Add salt and sambar powder and mix well.
Add the extracted tamarind pulp and let this boil for 10 minutes. When the small onions gets cooked, add the
ground paste and let it boil for 2-3 minutes.
Gently add the steamed cooked banana blossom-lentil mixture balls to the
gravy. After some times, it would start
to float on the top of the gravy.
That's it, by now the gravy would have become thick and
would have turned into a thicker texture.
Transfer to a bowl and enjoy with hot steamed rice with a
teaspoon of gingely oil.
