Banana flower ambode or masala vade is a South Indian-style deep-fried lentil snack, is delicious, nutritious, and has that earthy, slightly floral flavor of banana blossom balanced with spices.

You can prepare and serve it with lunch during festival or as snack with evening hot coffee/tea.

Ingredients:

1. Chana dal (split Bengal gram) – 1 cup
2. Dry red chilies – 4–5 (adjust to spice level)
3. Banana flower – 1 medium (about two cups cleaned & chopped)
4. Ginger – 1 inch
5. Curry leaves – 8–10
6. Coriander leaves – ½ cup
7. Green chilies – 2 (optional)
8. Fennel or jeera seeds – 1 tsp
9. Salt – to taste.
10. Finely chopped onion – 1 medium (optional)
11. Rice flour – 1 tbsp (for crispiness)
12. Oil – for deep frying.

Preparation:

1. Clean the banana flower: Remove the outer purplish bracts. Inside each layer, you’ll see a cluster of florets—remove them. From each floret, pull out the hard stick-like stamen and the papery petal (both are not pleasant to eat). Finely chop the cleaned florets and soak them immediately in water with a little buttermilk or lemon juice to prevent darkening.

2. Soak dal: Wash the chana dal well. Soak it with dry red chilies for about 2–3 hours. Drain excess water completely.

3. Grind the base: In a mixer, coarsely grind the soaked dal and red chilies with ginger, curry leaves, coriander leaves, green chilies, fennel seeds, and salt. Add little water or no water- the mixture should be coarse, not pasty.

4. Mix everything: Drain chopped banana flower from the buttermilk water and squeeze out excess moisture. Add to the ground dal mixture. Add chopped onions (if using) and rice flour. Mix well—if the mix feels too wet, add a spoon more rice flour.

5. Shape the ambode: Heat oil in a deep pan over medium flame. Take small portions of the mixture, flatten slightly into discs in your palm or you can use banana leaf.

6. Fry until golden: Slide the discs into hot oil and fry until crispy golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels.

7. Serve: Serve hot ambode with coconut chutney, tomato chutney, or even with rasam-rice.

Best enjoyed fresh—ambode loses crispness if stored too long.

Image credit: Banana tree: Mokkie, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Banana flower ambode: www.werindia.com – AI image