Plantain Balls/Vazhaikaai Kola Urundai

The pagevisits of my blog was high when I posted the mutton balls/Mutton Kola Urundai(Kumar mess style).And at the same time I received many requests from my pure vegetarian friends to post vegetable kola urundai recipe.I had heard earlier about the vazhaikai kola urundai from one of my chettinad friend.I mailed her asking for the recipe and the one I had posted here is her grandma's recipe.Thank u dear Sudha for the recipe...

 

U can try this with Banana blossom too.

 

For the recipe please click READ MORE below..

 

INGREDIENTS:

2 Nos of Raw banana
7-8 nos of Garlic pods(Remove the skin)
1/2 Tsp of Turmeric Powder
1 and 1/2 Tsp of Red Chilli Powder
1/2 Tsp of  cumin seeds /Jeera
1 Tsp of Fennel seeds
2 Tbsp of Cashew nuts(Broken)
1/4 Cup of Roasted gram/Pottukadalai/varu kadalai/Dalia
1/2 Cup of shredded coconut
Salt to taste
Oil for frying
Water for boiling the raw banana


PROCEDURE:

Boil water in a thick bottomed wide pan.

In the mean while cut the raw bananas as shown in the centre picture(above picture).

By now water would have started boiling

Add the cut raw bananas to the boiling water.
Close it and allow it to cook for some time(It took 20 minutes for me)

The water would have turned into dark brown colour by the time they get cooked.This is one of the indication to note that the bananas had finished cooking.

Drain the water.
Remove the skin of the banana.Cool it.
Then crumble it with hand into small pieces

In a hand mortar/Mixie crush the garlic pods.Keep it aside.
Heat a pan.Add a tsp of oil.
Add fennel seeds.Then add cumin seeds and leave it to crackle
Then add crushed garlic.Saute it

Then add chilli powder,turmeric powder and saute it
Then add cashew nuts and saute it

Add shredded coconut(I used small pieces of coconut).Saute it.
Finally add cooked and crumbled raw banana.saute it well. 

Add pottu kadalai/Roasted gram and saute it.
Add salt to taste and mix well.
Take a dry blender.See to it that it doesn't have any moisture.
Add the mixture to the blender .

Grind it into coarse paste.
Make them into small balls.
In the mean while heat oil in a pan.I used shallow frying to fry the balls.To get a nice round shapes u need to deep fry the balls

Add the balls and fry them till they turn brown.Let the flame be in medium position.

HANDY TIPS:

• Don't add water while grinding the mixture.The banana itself has some moisture which is sufficient.
• To enable even grinding of the mixture in between turn them with a spoon.
• U can deep fry the balls.This retains the round shape of the balls.I shallow fried the balls.But taste wise both taste the same.
• Fry them in medium heat.Or else inner part will not get cooked and the outer one will turn brown soon.
• Don't make the balls too big.Make it in the shape of a small lemon.If u make it big then the balls tend to crack
• While dropping the balls into oil,gently drop it or else it will break.U can drop them by keeping it on the spatula and then lowering them into the oil.
• Grind them coarsely and not too smooth.
• While grinding make sure that the mixie jar is dry.
• Don't saute the coconut too much as we need little moisture in the coconut to shape the balls.