Pazham pori (banana fritters)

Writing blogs is easy but writing down the procedural steps of a recipe is not easy. But still I love these Ethakka Appam / Pazham Pori (banana fritters)
You can’t miss those big variety of Banana known as Ethakka in Kerala. (now a days you get them in all the “Kerala stores” across the country and what is available across the country is available all over the world)
I was told that daily about 10000 idlis were made in Ernakulam early in the morning at 5 am, packed and send by flight so that they can have hot idlis for breakfast in Dubai.

Making Pazham Pori (Ethakka appam) is very easy.
Select the ripest ones.
Cut each banana into 3 or 4 pieces, lengthwise.
Make a thick batter with one cup refined flour and half cup rice powder (with half cup water). Add half cup sugar and teeny weenie bit of bicarbonate of soda.

Dip the banana slices in the batter and deep fry in hot oil till golden brown.
Drain off the excess oil and serve hot.

Simple isn’t it.
Now to make it a little more tasty, replace water with coconut milk.
Powder some elaka (cardamom/elaichi) and add to the batter. Yummmmmm.
(economy hint: the more ripe the banana, the less sugar you have to add)
Talking about banana reminded me of how I polished off 7 bananas at a stretch. This was in response to a challenge thrown in by my dad. I was well known at home for consuming bananas. One day my dad was back from marketing and as soon as he kept the bananas in the basket two disappeared. When he discovered that, he took the whole bunch (one doz) and kept it in front of me. “OK son let me see how much you can eat” I took up the challenge and started off one by one. I could eat 5 more making the total tally at 7. That should have created an aversion for bananas, but in my case it did not.
Below is a photograph from the net (plantain packing around 1900 in Circa)