Banana Flower Blossom/Vazahpoo Paruppu Urundai Rasam

Hi friends, Hope you are all doing, It is so cold and horrible out here, I cannot even stand in the kitchen as I don't have a heater there, and I cannot even cook as my toes and legs are getting numb if I stood long in their, I have never the temperature getting so cold, They say it is going to be like for some more time. May be I think we are going to have a white Christmas after all.
Coming back to the post, Using these Banana Flowers Paruppu Urandai/Dumplings, I made this dish, Which I had never tried before, was very delicious, I have used Banana Flowers/Vazhaipoo in some dishes, even though I did not cook much all the time in it, as It is  very time consuming, even this I took one whole day!, I am not scaring you off you know these flowers are very nutritious, but certainly a tedious job, I always loved it to unveil these flowers and wonder how beautifully God has created this. A few days back when I went to an Asian shop I saw these but just give it a thought, my H behind me said, shall we buy this ?, Mmm., I thought and said ok, and it was in a my fridge laying quietly, when I was going through Priya's blog and saw these two recipes, I knew what I was going to do :), So here I am with this recipe...........
As usual I had to tweak the recipe, actually started what Priya had done like here, to make a kozhambu, but when I came back from work, H said we had to go visit our friend tonight as their parents were leaving for India day after tomorrow, I just had time to make the Urundai/dumplings, pressure cooked them and left.
Check out Viki's blog, for a beautiful description of how to clean the Banana flowers, and how it looks like, and also check out this blog with beautiful photographs and description about the same.
It is important to soak them in buttermilk otherwise it changes colour, you can note the difference of my Urundai and hers!.
So, when I came back I had no time to go to the Grinding process in her recipe, So quickly I made this Rasam.

BANANA FLOWER BLOSSOM/VAZHAPOO PARUPPU URUNDAI RASAM

INGREDIENTS:
15 No Banana Flower/Vazhapoo Paruppu Urundai
1/2 lime size Tamarind
1 Medium sized Onion
2 Tomatoes
1 and 1/2 tbsp of Rasam Powder
Curry leaves
Salt
Asafoetida

Seasoning:
1 tsp of Mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and cumin see
1 tsp Pepper Corns
1 tsp Cumin seeds

METHOD:
To take the extract from Tamarind, just take 1/2 cup of water with tamarind and microwave it for a minute, Meanwhile, Take 2 litres of water, Bring it to boil, then add a some cold water to the microwaved tamarind, so that your hand is comfortable enough to handle the hot water then squeeze out the tamarind extract, and pour into the boiling water and then allow it to boil for few minutes until the raw smell of the tamarind disappears then add Rasam powder.
Then add salt and the Banana Dumplings into them slowly, and you can see that the balls start floating to the surface, then using a pestle and mortar, grind pepper corns and cumin seeds to a coarse powder add this and Asafoetida to it. you can see in the picture below how the dumplings are floating to the top.

Meanwhile chop the onions and Tomatoes and set aside, In a wok, heat a tbsp of oil, once it is warm add mustard seeds, after they splutter add fenugreek seeds and cumin seeds when they change colour and chopped onions and curry leaves, once the onions are transparent add the chopped tomatoes and sauté for a minute so they get cooked well, add this whole Sautéed Ingredients to the boiling water.

The combination of Rasam with the dumplings was so delicious, and perfectly suitable for the cold weather, Kids did not ask for a dry curry or a papad, as they always when I make Rasam or Sambhar. They used the dumpling as a curry going well with Rasam :)).
The Iyengar way of making this Rasam, you have to omit Sautéing of onion and Tomatoes, but just add the Dumplings into the Tamarind water and in the end season it with mustard seeds and curry leaves and of course do not miss adding the coarsely ground pepper and cumin seeds.
An another look at my Vazhapoo Rasam, alas I cannot pass it on to you...

Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.

BANANA FLOWERS/VAZAHPOO/BAALE HOOVA

photo courtesy from www.shutterstock.com, while I was searching for a photo I found this in Google Images, the flowers were so beautifully photographed, I just fell in love with this, isn't it so beautiful, so I picked this one up. Dear shutter stock thanks for your lovely clicks hope my readers would enjoy and visit your stock! of lovely Photographs.

Sending this to Tried and tested event Started by Zlamushka and now taken care of by Lakshmi and guest hosted by Nivedita of Seduce your taste buds.
Hope she accepts my late entries.