Make these delicious, crispy bananaflower vadais! Unlike a usual masala vadai with onions, this one is unique because of the mild bitterness and sharp flavours of the banana flower. The vadai has a mix of dals – toor, channa, moong and is flavoured with coriander, fennel and pepper and spiced with red chillies.
The most time-consuming part of this recipe is cleaning the banana flower. I’ll be honest – I’ve never done it and here is a link for you to learn how to clean it! Amma makes many dishes with banana flowers including using it in a parupusilli. But her speciality is this vadai. Unlike an usual masala vada which has mostly channa dal, this one has a mix of dals. Amma also flavours it beautifully resulting in a very unique tasting vadai.
The key to the success of these vadais is to make the batter perfectly. Here are Amma’s top tips to ensure your vadai is amazing!
- Soak the dals in boiling hot water. It makes the soaking process quick and ensures the dals are hydrated enough to grind well.
- Amma uses a mix of dals – one portion is channa dal and the other half is a mix of toor, moong and rice.
- When grinding, ideally – add no water. But if needed, add 1-2 tsp water only.
- Once the batter is half done, add the flavouring agents – coriander, fennel, red chilli, and pepper.
- Add only the mentioned quantity of banana flower. If you add more, it may taste a little bitter.
IF you are not too confident of using banana flower (I hear you – I’ve never cleaned it too), you can totally use onion, cabbage, spinach too. Amma uses the same recipe for it too.
Vazhaipoo Vadai
Ingredients
- ½ cup channa dal
- ½ cup toor dal
- ¼ cup broken green moong substitute with whole green gram and increase soaking time to 4 hours.
- 2 tsp moong dal
- 2 tsp masoor dal you can substitute with yellow moong dal too
- 2 tsp rice any shortgrain rice
- 8 red chillies
- 1 tsp fennel
- ½ tsp corainder seeds
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 cup cleaned and chopped banana flower
- curry leaves
Instructions
- Rinse and soak dals, rice in hot boiling water for 1.5 hours. If using regular water, soak for 3 hours.
- Drain all water completely. Keep the dals on a colander to ensure all water is fully drained out.
- Add the dals in multiple batches to a medium sized mixie jar and using the pulse mode, break down to a thick batter. It is important to not add any water when making the batter.Open the mixie multiple times, scrape the sides before adding extra dal.
- In between the dals, add red chilli, fennel, pepper, coriander and grind along with it.
- Remove the batter, add the finely chopped bananflower, curry leaves and mix well.
- Make vadais, frying a few at a time. Keep the flame on a low to medium and fry for 6-7 minutes per batch.
- These vadais stay crispy for a while and it is fantastic with ketchup!
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Please leave a comment below if you made this recipe, have any questions or thoughts! Your comment will help me learn more about your preferences and will help other readers.
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