Pazham Nirachathu / Stuffed Banana

Another rich and delicious snack from the Malabar Coast..

Ingredients

Ripe banana (nenthrapazham) - 2 nos

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Cashew (unsalted, not-roasted) - handful

Raisins - 1/4 cup

Cardomom powder - 1/4 tsp

Sugar - 2 tbsp

Maida or Atta - 1/2 cup

Water - as needed

Ghee / oil - for shallow frying

Method

1. In a non-stick pan, heat about 1 tsp of ghee. 

2. Break the cashew nuts into smaller pieces and fry them in this ghee. Drain and keep aside.

3. Fry the raisins too in the same ghee. When they have swollen, drain and keep aside.

4. In the remaining ghee in pan, roast the grated coconut until they turn light brown and start releasing a nice aroma. Remove from the pan and keep aside. Mix all the three roasted items together

5. Make a thick paste of maida/atta with little water.

6. Now take the bananas, one at a time, and make long narrow incision as shown in the pic.

7. Place about 2 tbsp of roasted mixture in this incision, slowly pushing them inside with both your thumb, to allow more place for the mixture.

8. Now close the incision with the maida/atta mixture. You can coat the entire banana also with the same batter, but thinner version.

9. Repeat, till you are done with all the bananas.

10. In the same non-stick pan, add more ghee/oil and shallow fry these bananas with the incision side down first. Later overturn it and cook the other side too. If you are coating the entire banana with flour paste, then you'll need more oil for frying.