This was a common snack prepared by my mother, when we were growing up in the Calicut house on Mavoor Road. For the most part, my sisters and I were poor eaters. These snacks were my mother's attempt to get some food into her girls. She would make it around sunset time after the Maghrib prayer, and we would get the snack of the day with a glass of hot milk, flavoured with Bournvita or Ovaltine. When she made nendrapazham porichathu, it would be in a much used cast iron pan, frying in fresh home made ghee. That fragrant aroma wafts over me as I write this recipe and takes me back to our kitchen on Mavoor Road, where my culinary journey began. To this day, I feel this dish is best made in a cast iron pan. For this recipe, I used a Lodge pan in my Toronto kitchen.
Ingredients
Nendrapazham - 1. Fresh ones imported from Kerala are the best. Plantains from Jamaica are a close substitute and is what I usually use.
Oil - 2 tbsp for frying. Use ghee if you wish. It is delicious.
Butter - a small pat to flavour the oil and give it a nice aroma.
Sugar - to sprinkle on the nendrapazhams.
Cut the bananas in long slices. An easy way out, is to cut them in little circles. But this is how mother cut them and I continue to do so, unless I'm feeling lazy!
Heat the oil and toss in the butter. Don't turn up the heat too high. Bear in mind that a cast iron pan can hold a lot of heat and you don't need the pan to be that hot.
Arrange nendrapazhams in pan in a single layer. You should hear a little sizzle when you put them into the hot oil.
The nendrapazhams in the centre will get done faster than the ones along the edge of the pan. When they are a nice golden brown, turn them over. Keep an eye on them as they can burn easily. Invariably, I tend to burn a few. But there's always someone who likes them crisp. In my house, it's little Amina.
When nendrapazhams are done, arrange them in a single layer on a plate and lightly sprinkle sugar on them, while they are still warm so that the sugar melts.
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