Sunday, June 20, 2010

Raw Banana Peel Kootu and an Update/ Apology


My previous post has been edited. I was carried away by an e-mail that was forwarded and happily shared the same. I was very inquisitive to read up, much later only. That is when I am lead to believe that the mail circulating is a hoax!
I have apologised for misleading my readers in that post. But once again, please forgive my over enthusiastic reaction to such NON-SCIENCE nonsense.

The outer peel of few vegetables can be made use of in many recipes. Some are added to roasted lentils and spices and ground to a paste while some can be cut, cooked with spices to go as accompaniments to rice.
For this kootu, you may use the fresh, green peel of plantain that we usually discard using the vegetable for making chips or stir-fry vegetables. The Nendram variety is most suited while the peel of any cooking plantain would be fine.
We make this in two methods, one adding jaggery and cooked as a sweet kootu and the other with spices and tamarind gravy. Given here is this second method. I have added adzuki beans to this kootu.
What you require:
1 cup cleaned and cut pieces of fresh plantain peel
1 teaspoon Sambhar/ rasam powder
1& ½ teaspoon salt
A small lime size ball of tamarind
½ teaspoon- 1 teaspoon powdered jaggery
2 tablespoons pressure cooked thuvar dhal
¼ cup soaked and cooked adzuki beans (thattai payaru)
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
Grind to a coarse paste
2 teaspoons fresh coconut
½ teaspoon raw rice (soaked in some water)
Tempering:
2 teaspoons cooking oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
½ teaspoon urad dhal
1 teaspoon channa dhal
¼ teaspoon asafetida powder
Few fresh curry leaves



Pressure cook the dhal and beans separately.
Boil the peel and cook until tender.
Soak tamarind and extract the pulp. Add the turmeric powder and salt. Allow to come to a boil and simmer for 7 minutes until the raw taste of tamarind is lost. Now add the jaggery and then the cooked peel and continue to simmer.
Few minutes later add to this simmering mixture the cooked dhal and beans. Allow them to cook for few minutes. Finally add the ground coconut paste.
Remove from fire when the gravy is thick.
Temper with the ingredients listed under tempering.
Serve with rice.

17 comments:

  1. Nice way to use up plaintain peels, loved the recipe

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  2. Nice..I make kootu in a different way..will try ur version soon :)

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  3. Never tried using banana peel in kootu,sounds interesting. Would love to give it a try :):)Dont bother abt the hoax,it happens :):)

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  4. I am amazed at the recipes that are popping in blogs using ingredients that we would normally discard.Very innovative use of waste.

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  5. never knew the peel could be used too..thnaks for sharing..will try this sometime..

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  6. It looks lovely.hearing of banana peel kootu for the first time, but I am going to attempt making this soon.

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  7. This is such an innovative dish!Looks very tempting.

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  8. Ohhhh nice idea of using banana peel for making kootu.. interesting lataji.. even when we fry it I love the skin more than the flesh part.. So will try it out for sure.

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  9. Interesting kootu, looks fabulous...

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  10. This is such an intresting dish..looks too good! also can't wait for tomorrow, to see two sun...:)

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  11. I love the idea of using plantain peels in kootu, never even knew the peels could be used. The kootu looks delicious, will definitely try this soon !

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  12. Sounds interesting, never tried kootu using banana peels.

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  13. A recipe from plantain leaf? Truly all parts of banana are useful to mankind, and your recipe proves the same.

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  14. How very interesting akka to use the peels (very fibrous) and that's a beautiful platter in the picture :)

    My FIL thought the 2 suns was true too.

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  15. This is new for me, nice recipe!!

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  16. We love banana at home and this is a new recipe for me. Looks good!

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Thanks once again,
Lata Raja.