(In the above picture, the left one is raw papad and the right ones are deep fried ones)
I hope my readers don’t get bored of my sun dried item series, because I have few more coming after this :).? I took advantage(or disadvantage) of my parents stay here to learn these all. So I can’t wait till I post them all here.
Now coming to keLe (banana) happoLu ( papad ). From my childhood, I have loved eating these. During my aayi’s childhood and college days, she had made these innumerable times. But down the line, somehow she stopped making these. Still we had a constant supply of these at home all the time. These taste great when deep fried or when fried on charcoal( kenDa ). In my aayi’s words, “the poha particles puff up like mothi (pearls) when these are deep fried”. Though she didn’t make these papads at home, she served the papad dough( hapLa peet ) as side dish every now and then.
At our place, we get a special kind of cooking bananas that we call as anbaLi or phodi keli (used to make phodis ). But any kind of cooking bananas can be used for this, by cooking banana, I mean the ones which are not eaten raw. These are usually available in vegetable isle in supermarkets. We used the ones that we bought from Indian store here.
When we were making these, hubby had no clue about all the excitement my aayi and I were showing. He said, “I don’t think I am going to like to eat those”.? We didn’t say anything, we knew once he tastes them, he will never forget. We had two small bananas, from which we got just 10 papads . Do I need to say they were instant hits once we deep fried them? They tasted just out of the world, spicy, very light and crunchy and had a asafoetida flavor to them. They were dried instantly and shrink considerably in size when dried.
Ingredients: 2 plantains/cooking bananas ( AnbaLi/phodi keLi ) 2 tbl spn chili powder 1/4 tea spn asafoetida 1 cup coarse powder of poha/avalakki Salt
Method: Keep the poha under sun for some time so that it becomes slightly crisp (this step is only to help grinding poha easily, we spread the poha on a hot tava for a short time to make it slightly crisp). Powder it coarsely. Cook bananas(with the skin) in steam, ie, in cooker, take the bananas in a vessel or plate and add very little water(may be 1 or 2 tbl spns) and cook.
Take out the bananas and peel the skin off the bananas, when they are still hot, the skin comes off very easily.
Grease a mixer/blender vessel with a little oil and grind the hot bananas with chili powder, salt, asafoetida, without adding water. Take out the paste, apply a little coconut oil to hands and make small balls from the mixture.
Wrap a plastic paper or aluminum foil to both rolling pin and rolling table ( lat paLe ). Roll the balls into round thin papads, apply as much poha powder as needed to help rolling.
Carefully take them off the paper and spread them on a sheet or a cloth under hot sun.
When the papads are dried completely and have become crisp, cool them to room temperature and store in air tight container. While serving, deep fry the papads and enjoy.
PS : Be very careful while grinding bananas. These bananas are very hard to grind and they make a sticky paste. So cut them in to small pieces before grinding. When they cool down, they become hard and you cannot grind them. Mixer/grinder gets stuck most of the time. I had thought my new Sumeet mixer had burned out when we were grinding this, but luckily it survived :).
The ready dough(cooked banana+chili powder+salt+asafoetida) can also be served as a side dish with rice and any dal /gravy.
Wish you all a very happy raksha bandhan .
Raksha bandhan is a Hindu festival, signifying the love between brothers and sisters. On this day, sister tie Rakhee to brother and in return brother promises to look after her. He also gives gifts to sister. More about this festival here .
As few of you know, I have an elder brother. So this festival always had a special meaning. He is kind of a second parent and mentor for me. Since I am a pampered younger kid at home, I had a hard time when I went for college for my bachelors. My brother was also doing his bachelors in Belgaum, he used to take care of my immediate needs. Then when I went to Bangalore, he arranged for all my stay and also helped me get my first job. Though we quarrel all the time when we are together, he has a very special meaning in my life. Now with an amazingly sweet and caring sister-in-law, this relation has only grown stronger.
As far as this blog is concerned, my brother does a lot of proof reading whenever he gets time. He keeps correcting the grammatical mistakes that I keep making. He takes pictures of many rare dishes that aayi cooks(which cannot be cooked here because of lack of many ingredients).
Though my brother does not like any sweets, I thought of posting this on the occasion of this festival, mainly because none of Hindu festivals are complete without any sweets. This sweet is a very unusual one. My aayi had prepared it during my brother’s recent trip to my native, he took pictures and sent it to me.
Ingredients: 4 bread slices(sugarless) 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup water 1/4 tea spn cardamom powder A pinch food color(optional) Oil
Method: Cut the bread into rings using cookie cutter or a round small bowl. Keep them aside.
Mix water and sugar in a pan and boil for about 5mins. Remove from heat, add color(optional) and cardamom powder.
Heat oil and deep fry the bread rings on a low flame.
Take out and dip them in the ready sugar syrup. Keep them in syrup for a minute and remove.
Serve them hot.
Serves : 2 Preparation time : 10mins
