My family loves plantain and it is evident if one takes a look in our grocery cart; we buy them every week along with bananas and other fruits. Whenever green ones are available, I convert them into plantain chips, or wait for a few days until they are ripe to eat, if they become overly ripe I turn it into halwa /Fudge or Pazham Pori /Plantain Frittersor Turron. When I was young, dad used to buy plantains and keep them in bags, and one day after playing a lot, I came home and asked mom can I have something to eat. She told there is plantain in the bag. I was happy and went to grab a plantain from bag, and then I came to realization that not only me but ants were also looking forward to taste sweet plantain. I end up getting a big swollen hand, as I have allergy to ant bite.
Yesterday I was talking to my friend Suja of Kitchen Corner, and all of sudden in our conversation, Unnakaya came up; I told her I tried it once but shape ( torpedo Shape) didn’t came out perfect. She told me she has a post about unnakaya in her blog, and I told I had made it without egg. She told if you want to try the authentic taste you need to add egg. Without eggs it is hard to imagine north Kerala, snacks. Yes Malabar cuisine always makes tasty dishes with eggs. I love their white rice flour flat bread called pathiri, also famous for their biriyani and special snacks like unnakaya, mutta mala, Kinnathappam etc. Kozhikode halwa is another die for sweet dish. I tried once making halwa, but not yet reached the taste it suppose to be. I will try and learn. I came to know about Unnakaya through cooking channels. While searching internet, I also found this recipe. This one is made with steamed plantain, and snack is a must during Ramadan.
I have a long list of items from Kerala cuisine that I need to try. It is always fun to make culinary trip. I always think it will fun to make trip to countries and place to taste lot of delicious cuisine, Just like Antony Bourdainor others in travel channel.
If you like plantain and have it in your kitchen countertop, what you will do, you may want to make Unnakaya just like I did. For this recipe Plantain should be ripe not too ripe. If I decide I can’t do it, the plantain keeps on marching to be over ripe; they won’t listen to me to just stay ripe. I would have loved to steam the plantain in the traditional way, but my baby is too curious and wants to see what is happening. It is the same, when I doing dishes, my baby will cry if he does not get to see all the action.
So I decide seek help of microwave for steaming the plantains. While working in the hospital I had seen one of my friends using microwave to steam the plantains, however I didn’t seriously take a notice at that time. For me microwave is only for warming the food or for making coffee, nothing more than that. I saw this YouTube video for steaming the plantains. However, video says you need to steam the plantain for about 4 minutes, but after 2 .30-3 minutes my plantains were well done. Then comes according to recipe you need to make a paste of steamed plantain into a food processor or blender. Again after thinking about all the dishes I have to clean, I skipped that part and thoroughly mashed plantain with potato masher and my hand and made the plantain dough.
I was in a mood to make it traditional way, so used fresh coconut along with raisins and cashew nuts, added 1 teaspoon of sugar, if you want more sugar add more maybe two –three tablespoon will be enough. I then added one egg and it also got cooked with rest of filling and added cardamom. I was amazed there is no eggy taste in the filling, egg blends with rest of ingredient very well. In Kozhikode area, these filling are called ‘Pandam”.
Once your filling is cooled, pinch out small portion of the steamed plantain dough, and spread it into thin circle and fill it with a tablespoon of filling/pandam. Finally seal them well and shape it into torpedo shaped balls. Since plantain sticks to your hand well grease you hand. Then fry these balls until it become golden brown color.
Enjoy with your favorite tea or coffee.
Print Recipes from here
Unnakaya/Stuffed Plantain Fritters
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Yield: 13 no
Ingredients
For covering
3 Ripe Plantains ( Ripe and firm)
1 tablespoon Water
For Filling
1 ¼ cup Fresh grated coconut
¼ cup Cashew nut
¼ cup Raisins
1 tablespoon ghee
2 no Cardamom
1 teaspoon Sugar (Increase 2-3 tablespoon if you want more sweetness
1 teaspoon ghee + 2 tablespoon Oil (For greasing the hand while making the plantain balls)
For Frying
3 cup Canola Oil
Directions
For covering
- First steam the plantains using steamer or microwave. I used microwave, for first cover the plantain with tissue and cook for about 2.30 to 3 minutes until the plantain is soft and set aside. Once it is cool enough touch peel the skin and cut it into two in the middle. Then again cut it in center each pieces, this will expose the center black seeds. Remove it using a knife.
- Mash the plantain pieces well using a potato masher or food processor add tablespoon water to make smooth dough and set aside.
For filling
- Heat ghee in a skillet and add cashew nut pieces and raisins, fry until cashew becomes brown and raisins plums up. To this add coconut and fry until golden brown color and it release nice aroma. To this add sugar and fry for another 1 minute. To this add an egg and fry again until egg gets cooked well. To this add cardamom powder and switch off the flame.
For Assembly and Frying
- Pinch out small lemon sized balls from steamed plantain dough. Grease the hand with ghee and oil mixtures and spread each small plantain balls into thin circle about 3 inch diameter. To this add 1 tablespoon filling and gradually cover and shape it into torpedo. Repeat the processes until entire plantain are made into balls.
- Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan, when it reaches 350 F slowly adds filled plantain balls. Fry until it becomes brown in color, make sure to turn other side when one side cooked well. Remove from the oil using slotted spoon and transfer to kitchen tissue to remove any excess oil.
- Enjoy with your favorite tea or coffee.
Notes
- Use only ripe plantain not the ripest one.
- If you want you can add 1 teaspoon of sugar while making the plantain dough.
- In order to prevent plantain from sticking to finger, grease well with ghee and oil mixture or you can simply coat the stuffed plantain balls into the ghee -oil mixture.
- While frying turn the fritters only when one side is done well otherwise it will stick to pan.
This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread. All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.
Happys Cook says
Swathi, U have a nice colloection of recipes... Thanks for visiting my space, I am ur new follower
Kaveri Venkatesh says
Though I've heard a lot about this never got a chance to try them...looks and sounds absolutely delicious
radha says
Never had them. But all those yummy ingredients that have gone into the filling and a banana coating. It sure must have been delicious.
mjskit says
I tried making these once with very little success so I'm thrilled to see a step-by-step here. I definitely will be giving them another try using your recipe. Thanks!
Sandhya Ramakrishnan says
Swathi this looks so delicious! Wish i could taste some...
Reshmi Mahesh says
Swathi I love this..Delicious and perfect evening snack...
Nagashree says
Those fritters look delicious, will try sometime.
Nagashree says
I love raw plantains and those fritters look gorgeous. Will try sometime
Suja Manoj says
Wow love this traditional dish,this is tempting me,adipoli aayitundu,so sweet of you to think of me too :)njan angottu varatte
Nilu A says
Please pass that plate to me Swathi.... Loved it... I'm a new blogger... Do visit my blog... http://kitchenserenity.blogspot.in/
Rosita Vargas says
Que ricos buñuelos luce delicioso y hermoso quiero ir por varios,abrazos y abrazos
Julie says
yummy delicious snack,Swathi..adipoli ayittundu:)
Hema says
Traditional Kerala dish, thanks for sharing it here..
VINI N says
Very tempting, I can have them all :)!
El Oteador de los Mercados says
Those banana fritters should be delicious. Here in my city (Valencia, Spain) are typical fritters of pumpkin, taken, along with a cup of hot chocolate.
Achu says
Oh goddddddddddddddd so tempting making me to eat it as I am from kerala 🙂 Sure gotta make it for sure..thank u so much for sharing and loved the step by step pictures.so cute one 🙂 Wish to grab one from u 🙂
Chitz says
Yummy.. Am drooling !!!
Arthy Suman says
ww i hv never tried this dish, in malaysia we make something similar with tapioca...
Angie Schneider says
These fried plantains look so delicious!
Ameya says
Oh I love these fritters! Long time no talk, Swathi! How are you these days?
Sangeetha Priya says
such a tempting dessert Swathi, loved it...
Follow Foodie says
Very nice presentation swati .
Loved it
http://www.followfoodiee.com
Sanoli Ghosh says
Delicious fritters. Yummy and mouthwatering.
today's post:
http://sanolisrecipies.blogspot.in/2013/03/hyderabadi-vegetable-dum-biryani.html
Arthy shama says
Wow.. luvely and healthy starter!!
Sona - Quick Picks says
too yummy...would love to have one straight away
Gujarati Zaika says
wow looks yummy, new to me
Shailaja Reddy says
Innovative and different filling plantains. Love it.
kitchen queen says
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm such tempting fritters, lovely presentation and clicks too.
Nisa Homey says
Perfect unnakayi......love love it.
Premalatha Aravindhan says
I havent tasted this ,but am sure it tastes delicious...
Lavanya T R says
U made these fritters so well 🙂
http://www.divalikes.com
Meg's Delicious Adventures says
yummy fritters
Kitchen Queen says
nice explantion of the dish and all the things. turned out good after your fear of not getting in torpido shape.
Hari Chandana P says
Looks super delicious.. Yummy !!
Rani Acharyulu says
Nice crisp fritters....
Divya Shivaraman says
This is so new to me da...wonderful thinking...i simply loved your step wise explanation
Shabbu says
Delicious,my favourite...but here we don't get plantains...
Gayathri Ramanan says
fritters looks yummy and crispy..lovely clicks
Veena Theagarajan says
looks good lovely traditional dish
Priya Sahasranaman says
Wow! Never tasted this before - would love to give it a try...
http://thegoddessofspice.blogspot.com/
Maha Gadde says
awesome looking fritters.well explained 🙂
Tanu says
these sound so good. i have never tried anything other than chips with plantain. i'll try this out.
Rita Bose says
So crispy and delicious plantain fritters!
http://www.rita-bose-cooking.com/
Amrita Vishal says
I am so in love with traditional recipes, though I seldom make them. This looks such an interesting dish...loved it
Sona S says
wow this is one of my favorites, looks yummy and nice step by step pics and explanation.
Manjula Bharath says
wow very diffrent and yummy looking fritters 🙂 love them 🙂