Banana Fritters

Everyone and everything here awaits Christmas now. It gets dark around 5pm and wherever you turn, you see cute little lights and candles, adorning huge and small christmas trees. The shops, malls, houses, railway stations and even my office has got the new Christmas look now. In Germany, Advent is celebrated as a tradition awaiting Christmas. It marks the four weeks before Christmas. Every week, one of the four candles in the advent wreath is lighted until Christmas. You can find more info in http://www.german-way.com/christmasAdv.html. It is really fascinating to know such things about the traditions and cultures in the lives of people in different countries.

Now, coming to the post, this is yet another entry for the Blog Hop Wednesdays, an event by Radhika of Tickling Palates. This time, I got the chance to visit Jabeen's Corner. I have been following her space for quite some time now and I really find her space interesting. The way she narrates things sometimes makes me feel as if I'm hearing her in person and the liveliness in her tone is contagious. I'm glad I got a chance to try something from her blog. As always, we (I and my husband) were browsing through her posts and when we saw Banana Fritters, we at once knew - that's it.

Banana Fritters, known as 'Pazham Pori' regionally, is a famous tea-time snack in Keralite households. As I'm writing the post, it brings me some of the unforgettable memories in my life. I very well remember where I first tasted these gorgeous snack. During our final year Engineering studies, we, a group of four friends were staying at one of our Keralite friend's house in Trivandrum, for doing our Project Work. Her mother is a wonderful cook. Inspite of her full time job, she passionately cooked varieties of tasty dishes for us all. Every evening, after we return tired from our day's work, we would find something special and tasty awaiting us in the dining table, along with tea. We used to savour these as hungry birds, chit-chatting and drinking tea. One such evening was when I got to taste these. It was wonderful that even banana can be fried and it tasted really awesome.

After that, it was in my in-laws place where I tasted them again. My husband's native is a town located quite close to the Kerala border in Tamilnadu and strongly influenced by Kerala cuisine. Every often, my mother-in-law would prepare these simple delicacies. It would all vanish within a few minutes, as everyone in family likes them. I, myself, have never prepared these and it's quite been some time sinced we ate them last. Well, now you could imagine my husband's enthu on seeing this in Jabeen's Corner.

I went ahead straight away and prepared these last Sunday. The recipe is so so simple, that there is really no need to repeat it. You can find it here. Just prepare the batter, dip the banana pieces and fry. You'll be surprised at the number of pieces easily going into your mouths within minutes.

Notes:

• The banana should be really ripe enough for a good taste. Long yellow coloured variety (Yethampazham) is well suited.
• I did not use turmeric, as like my mother-in-law's recipe.
• The amount of sugar can be adjusted according to the sweetness of the banana. It can very well be replaced with honey or maple syrup.

Thanks again Jabeen for the recipe. Happily sharing this with Tickling Palates' Blog Hop Wednesday - Week 10.