Kelphulachi bhaji

Kelphulachi bhaji- banana flower dry vegetable:

Kelphul or the banana flower is one of the most delicious flower to be eaten. We Goans love kelphulachi bhaji a lot. You ask any Goan and each will answer the same. The taste of a kelphul is really the best, no other vegetable can ever replace. This is one of the most famous traditional vegetable prepared in every Goan home since ancestral times.

The preparation of this bhaji is very easy though the hard work required in it's pre- preparation is more. I shall explain first how to clean the banana flower.

Cleaning of banana flower:
Always clean banana flower the previous night. Banana flower vegetable cannot be made instantly, it has to be kept in water overnight.
The banana flower cleaning is a very tedious job and requires lot of time. It has to be carefully done. A banana flower looks purpurlish in color, you need to discard off all of the outer purple coverings to get inner yellowish colored body. I have taken a screenshot of an image from net to show you how a banana flower looks.

There are small small florets attached underneath each purple bract. Remove all the florets and collect in a plate. Now take each floret and remove 2 things out of it- a small translucent cover and a long stick called as style which has a hand shaped sticky stigma on top. So discard these 2 things from each floret and keep each floret aside. These are non digestable parts, so they are discarded. Also your vegetable turns bitter if you keep them.

Also note if there are any blackish strings within florets, then u need to discard them too. Now collect all cleaned florets and chop them into very fine pieces.

Now coming to the yellow body which is away from all purple bracts, there will be again tiny florets attached to these which are very tender and stuck very closely. You need not remove the style , stigma and translucent cover out of these as they are stuck to each other and the whole floret is closed. So just take them and chop them off directly. Last you are left with thick yellow inside body without bracts, which you have to chop up fine. I have a picture below to show you the clean yellow body along with florets.

Now put all the chopped parts in a vessel and pour water in it till all dips. Keep it closed with lid overnight in this water. This step is actually to remove all the sticky gum residing in flower. Note that all your chopped vegetable will turn brownish to black due to contact with oxygen and that is fine.

Next day you have to carefully remove the chopped vegetable out of water and use. Discard the water.

Also soak chana in water overnight.

Let's go to the preparation of vegetable next day.

Ingredients:
Chopped banana flower-1 or 2
Soaked chana overnight-1 cup
Green chillies-2-3
Scraped coconut-1 cup
Oil-2 tsp
Hing-1 or 2 pieces
Mustard seeds-1 tsp
Jaggery-4-5 tsp, approx 1/2 small cup
Salt as per taste

Method:
In cooker cook soaked chanas for 3-5 whistles. Some chanas don't get cooked, so I mostly remove 8-9 whistles also. After pressure is released, add chopped banana flower too in same and cook again for 2 whistles.

In vessel add oil, hing, mustard seeds, green chillies chopped, then cooked banana flower and chanas together from cooker. Stir well. Add jaggery and salt and let it cook. Jaggery and salt will tend to release water, so your vegetable will be too watery now, but you have to cook till all water gets absorbed and is absolutely dry.

At last add scraped coconut and cook till dry.

Serve with Goan rice/chapati/ pau.

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