Plantain flower usili (Vazhai poo paruppu usili)1

This is an authentic South Indian curry, predominantly made in most parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and certain parts of Kerala. First, wash and soak channa dal, toor dal, dhaniya, red chillies and curry leaves in water for about 1 hour. Once the water is all absorbed by the dals and the dals appear little softer, grind the dals, daniya, red chillies, curry leaves and pinch of hing to a coarse paste. You should be able to see the dals here and there in the paste. Now, take this ground paste into a greased vessel, add little salt and pressure cook for about 10 minutes or upto one whistle. After the paste is cooked, take it out of the pressure cooker and keep it aside. After it has cooled down, use your hands to crumble the dal paste. I have also tried microwaving this paste. But to me, it tastes good if we pressure cook it. Get a big banana flower available in big asian farmers markets. The plantain flower is kind of conical with layers of red leaves. When you remove these red layers, you will see bunch of white flowers inside these red layers. These flowers contain a thick stamen called #39;Kalla#39; in Kannada. These stamens have a thick black bulb like thing and these need to be removed from the flowers. After the stamen has been separated from the flowers, discard this stamen and chop the flowers very fine and soak them in water mixed with buttermilk. Soaking them in buttermilk prevents from blackening of the flowers. Now heat a heavy bottomed pan or kadai. Add 2 tbsp of oil and after oil is hot, add mustard seeds. After they crackle, add the urad dal and the channa dal. Add few curry leaves, and a pinch of hing. Add the chopped plantain flowers without the buttermilk. Also add little salt (Remember you have also added salt to your ground paste) and turmeric powder and cook the flowers until soft. Now add the crumbled dal paste to the flowers and mix well and allow the dal paste and flowers together to cook for about 10 minutes. Mix well and garnish with curry leaves. Your vazhaippoo paruppu usili is ready to eat. This can be had with rice or as a side dish to koottu or perugu pulusu etc. Though it is a cumbersome process, it really tastes good if prepared well :-)). This kind of paruppu usili can be prepared with beans or cluster beans or cabbage or with plantain flower.