PAZHAMPURI

Dish of the Day- Pazhampuri

Place- Kerala.

The first thing I tasted in Kerala was Pazhampuri so this dish holds special memories for me. 

When I told my Mallu friend that we were going to Kerala for our Industrial visit, the first thing he told me to do was to get off at a random station and order Pazhampuri. I didn’t even know what that was but it sounded exciting and because even has a passion for food like me, I trusted him.

I waited excitedly for us to get to the first station in Kerala so that I could start looking for fresh, hot pazhampuri.  So when the train pulls into Thirur, I hop out in search of it.

I was insanely excited on seeing vendors with big vats of oil in front of them, insisting that theirs is ‘fresh’; but once you pop one into your mouth, you realize that their definition of fresh ranges from three days to a week old! Still, this fried sweet dish that is the specialty of Mallu street food, appealed to me and Malavika. (We’re the only two South Indians in class!)

For those of you who are clueless about what Pazhampuri is, they’re banana fritters, which are invariably fried in coconut oil since Kerala is famous for its coconut trees and pretty much everything there is cooked in coconut oil. 'Pazham' means fruit and in this case, it's banana because ;like coconut, banans are also readily available in God's Own Country.

* ‘zh’ in Tamil and Malayalam is pronounced as ‘r’ while rolling your tongue and touching it to the roof of your mouth. So this is in fact, “pa- rum- puri”. :)

How to Cook it Up:-

Ripe Bananas……….……………………4

All purpose flour/ Maida……………1 cup

Fine rice flour …………………………...2 tbsp

Turmeric powder ……………………...a pinch

Baking soda………………………………1/8 tsp

Sugar………………………………………..1 tsp

Salt…………………………………………..1/4 tsp

Coconut Oil……………………………………………for frying

Directions:- 

1)Cut each banana lengthwise and then breadthwise into 4 pieces.

2)  Mix the maida, turmeric powder, rice flour, sugar, salt and baking soda with a little water to make a batter with a consistency that’s not too thick and not too thin.

3) Heat oil in a kadhai and dip each banana piece into batter before slowly putting it into the oil to fry.

4) Turn the heat down to medium and fry all the pieces the same way.

5) When one side turns light golden brown, turn it over and let it stay in the oil until the other side also looks like that.

I personally love eating this hot with vanilla ice- cream. Mmmmm. Yummy! J