Vazhaipoo vadai / Banana Flower Fritters / Aarati Puvvu Vada

The first time I tasted this was at one of our friend's house back home in Chennai. Her mom prepared these. I had no clue what they were. And it being a Tamil savory never got to taste growing up. Only thing I remember was these tasted damn good. They look and taste like our regular masala vada but definitely something different. Ever since wanted to know how it was made., but never took the leap to make it myself..Many a time I even bought the Banana flower, stored it in the fridge but never got time to make these, because of the time consuming part of cleaning the flower. Finally one day with help from my husband in cleaning the flower I made these at home. I never intended to have a photo shoot with these..so please don't mind my presentation. Will surely replace them with better ones if I happen to make these again.

Also Will update later with the pictures of Banana flower and the cleaning process
Ingredients:
3 cups Banana flower - Thoroughly cleaned and finely chopped
1 cup Channa Dal soaked for 2-3 hours and ground into a coarse paste
5-7 Green Chillies chopped
Handful of Curry leaves
3/4 tsp Fennel Seeds/Saunf
A pinch of Asafoetida & baking soda & turmeric each
Salt - to taste

Enough Oil to deep fry

Method :
Add all ingredients except oil, in a deep bowl and mix into a paste like below
Heat enough oil in a pan.
Once the oil is hot enough, take a small amount of the mix, shape them into round vada and drop them gently into hot oil.
Just the way we do masala/paruppu vada
Deep fry them till they are golden brown on both sides by turning once in a while.
Then remove from heat and drain them on paper towels.
Can be serve as starters or snack with evening tea.