How to Cook a Banana Flower

For South Asian women, food is a medium of expressing love and a vital part of their culture. The only way to improve your food knowledge and cooking skills as an Asian woman in the diaspora is by keeping up with the reemerging traditional cuisines with some modern twists. In honor of the delectable cuisines of South Asia, here are banana flower recipes Indian to get you started.

What Is a Banana Flower?

This is a purple-skinned flower with a cone shape that grows at the end of an unripe banana cluster. The flower mainly comprises leaves, also known as bracts, and a white-colored center with a bitter taste.

The banana flower has been a popular vegetable in south-east Asian and Indian cooking. But it is vastly gaining popularity globally due to its health benefits. One hundred grams of the banana flower has about 1.5 grams of proteins, 4 grams of carbs, and nutrients 23 grams of calories. The banana flower is very rich in fiber and contains a significant amount of minerals. It, therefore, helps lower cholesterol and blood sugar and prevent constipation.

Banana blossoms also have some antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that may help suppress benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Where to Buy Banana Flower

Finding banana flowers is usually very easy in Asian countries. Vendors in open vegetable markets and supermarkets sell them at very low prices. You can still get the banana blossom in a local Asian market or Indian food store. Alternatively, you can buy them canned or frozen in some grocery stores or even on Amazon.

Banana Blossom Recipes

There are several dishes you can make using banana flowers. The south-east Asians eat them in salads, curries, chutney, and stir-fries. Others even use it as fillings in pastries, pies, and quiches.

The banana flower recipe starts with the preparation process. It entails separating the edible and non-edible parts, cleaning, and chopping the vegetable. The inner petals of the bracts are the edible parts of this vegetable. Check out the preparation procedure:

1. Put in water, salt, and lemon juice in a bowl.

2. Remove the outer darker layers of the banana flower, then cut the bottom part that turns into a banana. You can use the leaves as serving plates or discard them.

3. Remove the pink inner bracts but don’t discard these.

4. Take the floret between the bracts and keep the petals in a different bowl. Dispose of the hard bracts, stigma, and pistil.

5. Continue removing the bracts until you get to the banana flower’s heart. Make a longitudinal cut into the heart, then chop it into the desired sizes.

6. Chop the pink bracts and the petals, and place everything in the bowl with water, salt, and lemon juice for about 20 to 30 minutes to remove bitterness and prevent oxidation. The longer you leave the banana flower in the water, the less bitter it will be.

7. Thoroughly rinse the vegetable with cold water whenever you want to cook.

Banana Blossom Recipes

If you want to try it in salads, get a younger banana blossom since it’s less bitter. Mix it with shredded papayas, nuts, carrots, mints, and shallots. Squeeze in lemon juice, add some salt, mix everything perfectly and enjoy.

Banana Flower curry

The first banana flower recipe you may want to try is curry. You can serve this dish with steamed rice and ghee, use it as a filling on your taco, or top it on your flatbread.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of cleaned and chopped banana flower

• One sliced green chili

• 1 tsp mustard seeds

• 4 tbsp oil

• 5 to 6 curry leaves

• Salt to taste

• One finely sliced onion

• 1 tsp cumin seeds

• 1tbsp tamarind juice

• 1 tsp mustard seeds

Directions

1. Put oil on a saucepan over medium heat, add onion and curry leaves, and sauté them till light brown.

2. Add tamarind, green chili, cumin, and mustard seeds, and cook them in low heat for three minutes.

3. Add the cleaned and chopped banana flowers to the pan, mix well and cook for about five to seven minutes under low heat.

4. Season with salt as needed, then serve when hot.

Stir Fry Banana Flower

This stir-fry banana flower recipe is one of the easiest to follow.

Ingredients

• One banana flower

• 2 tsp cooking oil

• One red onion

• 2 tsp fresh ginger

• ½ tsp cumin

• ½ tsp turmeric powder

• 3 dry chilies

• 3 garlic cloves

• ½ tsp coriander

• 1 tsp paprika

• Salt to taste

• Red chili flakes and cilantro

Directions

1. Clean, sort, and cut the banana flower as outlined above

2. Heat a saucepan at medium heat and add onion, oil, garlic, and ginger. Sauté them for about ten minutes and keep stirring.

3. Add in the banana flower. You can either cook the heart alone or include the bracts too. Stir them well.

4. Put in the dry chilies, coriander, turmeric powder, salt, cumin, and paprika, then stir for around two minutes.

5. Garnish your dish with cilantro and red chili flakes. You can serve it with spinach and an egg or as a side dish with rice.

Banana Flower Chutney

This is another banana flower recipe you will enjoy making repeatedly.

Ingredients

• One big cup of chopped banana blossom

• One cup of grated coconut

• 1 tsp coriander seeds

• Two dried chilies

• Small size tamarind

• ½ tsp cumin seeds

• 3 tsp cooking oil

• Salt to taste

• ½ tsp mustard

• 8 pods of garlic

• One leaflet of curry leaves

• 1 tsp pepper

Directions

1. Put cleaned and chopped banana flowers, cumin seeds, pepper, coriander, tamarind, salt, cumin, and curry leaves into a pot and boil them under medium heat for about two minutes.

2. Allow the mixture to cool completely, transfer it into a grinder, and grind it together with the grated coconut till smooth. You can add salt and tamarind as required at this stage.

3. Place a pan with oil over medium heat, add mustard seeds and stir till they splutter. Put in garlic and onion and saute them till they turn golden brown. Add the dry red chilies and curry leaves and let them sizzle for a couple of minutes.

4. Transfer the ground chutney mix into the saucepan, stir well and let it cook on a medium flame for about five minutes.

5. Serve the chutney with curd rice, idli, or dosa.

Important Tips on How to Make Banana Flower Recipe

Frozen banana blossom may not work well for salads but is a perfect option if you wish to cook them. If presented with the opportunity to inspect the banana flowers, choose those that feel firm, with tightly packed leaves.

Note that the banana flowers are highly perishable so consume them as soon as possible after purchase. If you don’t plan to use them immediately, wrap them in a plastic bag and refrigerate them for three days.

Always use fresh inner peels for the above banana flower recipe. You can refrigerate the leftover banana flower stir fry and chutney in an airtight container for up to a week.

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