How to clean Banana Flower ?

Banana Tree is so amazing .. Each and every part is useful. Banana flower, Banana stem, Raw banana are used in cooking. Banana is a favourite fruit for many people. Banana leaf is used for serving food in India. Banana Flower is a rich source of Vitamin A and Vitamin C. It is called as Arati Puvvu in telugu and Vazhaipoo in tamil. My mom prepares Vazhaipoo Vada and Vazhaipoo poriyal often. Cleaning the banana flowers is time consuming and requires lots of patience. It took nearly one hour for me to clean the whole banana flower. My mom usually cleans banana flower during evening and stores these cleaned banana flowers in fridge. She utilizes it for next day lunch. Please check below for step by step instructions and pictures for cleaning banana flower.

Instructions for cleaning Banana Flower:

• Open the leaf one by one. You will find a group of long yellow flowers attached to each leaf. Remove those pale yellow flowers from the leaf. 

• Discard the leaf and collect the flowers in a plate.The size of the leaves goes on decreasing. At one point, it will be difficult to remove the leaves. Chop those leaves and add it to butter milk.

• Repeat the process till you reach the inner most layer.

• Take one pale yellow flower and observe it carefully. Remove the feathery papery layer and stamina (thin stalk) from the flower.   

• Chop the remaining part of flower into buttermilk to avoid discoloration. Repeat the process for the remaining flowers

Tips:

• Select the banana flower which is firm and fresh. The outer leaves should overlap tightly. 
• It is suggested to coat the hands and the working surface with lemon juice or cooking oil before cleaning the banana flowers. Alternatively one can use gloves to prevent stains in our hands.

Banana Flower Recipes you may interested : 

Banana Flower Fry - Vazhaipoo Poriyal
Banana Flower Kootu - Vazhaipoo Kootu
Banana Flower Vadai - Vazhaipoo Vadai