How to clean the banana flower?

Banana flower is otherwise called banana blossom or plantain flower or banana heart .The tamil name is Vaazhai poo (vaalai poo).In addition to the fruit, the flower of the banana plant is used in Southeast Asian, Tamil, Bengali and Kerala (India) cuisine, either served raw with dips or cooked in soups and curries.
Cleaning the banana blossom is a challenging task for every beginner.
So I am explaining it with images.



Wash the entire flower under running water.Apply some oil on your hands to avoid discoloration of skin.
Remove and discard the red bracts.
Gather all the small flowers inside. If not used they would have grown into individual sweet bananas.
You can peel up blossom to certain limit only, then leave the cone as it is.
carefully open each white blossom. You may see a plastic textured petal and a hard stamen. Just remove both.






Discard the above and collect the soft flowers.




Take 2 cups of water and mix 1 tablespoon of yogurt to it.
Immerse the cleaned banana flowers in to the solution.,
This is done to prevent the oxidation of the flower.
Chop the cleaned plantain flowers and the inner cone.
This chopped banana flower can be used to make curry, fry, vazhai poo vadai, soup etc.


Image shows the typical Indian style Plantain flower poriyal

wedding feast sambar

Sambar is the most common curry cooked in almost every house in South India. It is served with main course rice in almost all the South Indian marriages.The main ingredient of sambar is Toor dhal or Tuvaram paruppu or red gram lentil. Among Tamil people
there is an old saying - "Paruppu Illama Kalyanama?" which means Is there any marriage feast without red gram lentil?By this proverb we can understand the importance of sambar in Indian dishes.
I am narrating below the recipe for this famous "wedding feast sambar".


Ingredients:
To pressure cook:
Toor dhal/red gram lentil - 1/2 cup (100 gms)
water- 2 cups
turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
asafoetida - 1/8 tsp
sesame oil- 1 drop
vegetables:
Tomato - 1
Unripe green mango - 1 very small (150 gms)
Drumstick - 1 (100 gms)
white Brinjal/Indian Egg plant- 2 (50 gms)
other items:
shallot onion- 50 gms/ 4 numbers(peel them but dont cut it)
Tamarind - small gooseberry size
cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
cooking oil - 1 tbsp
ghee - 1 tbsp
curry leaves- 1 brig
cilantro/ coriander leaves (chopped)- 1 tbsp
mustard seeds-1/2 tsp
fenugreek -1/2 tsp
jaggery- 1 tsp (crushed)
salt - 1 tsp
sambar powder - 2 tbsp
Red chillies- 2

Method:
Soak the tamarind in 1 cup water for 20 minutes. Squeeze it and get the extract.
Wash and clean the Toor dal .soak it for 30 minutes.Pressure cook the items mentioned .
(If you do not have pressure cooker then boil 2 cups of water and add the dal, water,turmeric powder ,asafoetida and oil.Close it and cook till the dhal becomes soft.)
Then mash it coarsely along with cumin seeds.
In a separate pan, heat the cooking oil and add the peeled but uncut Shallot onions and saute it to golden bown.
Add it to the cut vegetables and add tamarind extract .Cook the vegetables with sambar powder and salt.
(If you dont have sambar powder , just add 1 tsp chilli powder, 2 tsp coriander powder.Even though it is not equal to sambar powder , but it will do fine.)
After the vegetables get cooked , add the mashed dhal .
In the frying pan add ghee , mustard , fenugreek. After the mustard crackles add curry leaves, red chillies and pour it to the dhal-veggie mixture.
As it starts boiling add the jaggery and put off fire.
Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve hot.

Serving suggestions:
makes 750 ml of sambar.
Serve with rice or dosa or chapathi.