recipe source: GM Pradhan
picture: courtesy
Ingredients:
One fresh male Banana blossom
1 kg medium size potatoes
100 grams Teel (Sesame seed)
1 teaspoon Methi (Fenugreek Seeds)
Groundnut (peanuts)
3 medium sized Green chillies
3 tablespoon Cooking Oil
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Quarter teaspoon turmeric powder
Fresh mint sprigs for garnishing
Method:
Remove bracts
of male banana blossom and pick out the developing mini bananas. These parts
of the flower where the bananas have started to develop are to be discarded. Save these
large colorful bracts to decorate the serving dish later on. Remove the bracts
and developing fruit till the bract colour changes to a pale hue. You will notice that the
flowers are now on very tiny ovaries that will eventually develop into bananas. These are
the flowers to save for the salad.
Once you have gone through the process and gathered all
the mature flowers soak them in water in a bowl. Pick each flower and remove the pistil
and tiny transluscent bract like structure ( marked in
pink in the photograph ). 
Discard these.
This is quite a time
consuming job but well worth the effort. Wash the prepared flowers in clean water and boil
till tender (approx 10 minutes). Throw away the water and gently squeeze the cooked banana
flowers till all remaining water is drained. Spread the boiled banana flowers on
paper towels to dry further.
Boil potatoes
and skin and cut into half inch cubes.
Dry roast
sesame
seed and peanuts separately in a thick bottomed wok ( a heavy frying pan will do)
and dry grind (separately) in a food processor. The grinding should be to a fine
consistency. While roasting these seeds make sure not to over do it and burn the seeds as
this will give a burnt taste to the final salad.
Mix the cubed
potatoes and boiled banana flowers in a dish. Add ground sesame seed and peanut, salt to
taste and lime juice and mix well.
In a small pan
add cooking oil and heat well till the oil starts smoking. Add fenugreek seed, chopped
chillies and turmeric powder. Stir till fenugreek seed turns black. Quickly pour this
mixture on top of the salad and mix well.The Banana
Flower Salad is now ready to serve.
recipe source: GM Pradhan
recipe source: GM Pradhan
picture: courtesy
