UNNAKKAYI / PLANTAIN COTTON PODS

I am pretty sure most of you,Malayali's, would have seen this atleast once in their lifetime. Or am I wrong? If that's the case,you really have to try it. It really is delicious.Since I was brought up in the Malabar region of Kerala, this was a very common snack sent across by our Muslim friends and neigbours.It used to be the snack in my school friend's tiffin box.The later was slightly different from the ones I had tasted before,interms of the filling.

'Unnakkayi ' literally means 'cotton pods'. Have you seen a cotton tree with cotton pods on it? Cotton is called as 'Unnam' therefore cotton pods gets translated into Unnathinte Kaaya / Unnakkayi.

This tea time snack (for us) is always filled with grated coconut,cashewnuts,raisins sauteed in pure ghee.Like how I've mentioned before,this snack has another filling which is made of scambled eggs. Oh! wait! Before you make that funny face,let me tell you ,it's really tasty. I have eaten it many times but we cannot think of making and stuffing that filling into our plantains,so we usually stick onto the coconut one.

When I say plantains here,I am talking about the 'Ethakka'/ 'Nenthrapazham' and not the Puttu-nte pazham. I used to call the 'Ethakka' as banana and the Puttu-nte pazham as plantains until we went to America. Then the light dawned upon me!

UNNAKKAYI /  PLANTAIN COTTON PODS
My own recipe

Ingredients:
2 half ripe plantains (Nentrapazham / Ethakka)
2 tablespoon granulated sugar or as needed
1/2 cup grated coconut
1 tablespoon cashew nuts,chopped
1 tablespoon golden raisins
2 teaspoon ghee
Coconut oil,for frying

Method: Cut the plantains into two,leaving the peel on and steam till cooked and fork tender.Grind them to a smooth paste without adding water.Keep it aside.
In a small pan, melt ghee and fry the nuts to golden.Add the raisins and wait till it has plumped up.Add the coconut and sugar and cook till the sugar melts.Keep aside.
Divide the plantain dough into golf ball sized balls. Smear some oil in your palms and take one such plantain ball. Fatten it and fill it with some coconut mixture.Carefully seal it by pressing the plantain mixture together.Shape them as you saw above.Repeat.
Deep fry in coconut oil. Drain excess oil and serve.

This is best served on a rainy day,like all deep fried goodies! :-)
FYI, I'm a lot more active on my Facebook page these days,where I update our day to day stuffs along with Vaava's photographs.It's much easier than blogging,no cooking involved! :-D So join the bandwagon,if you feel like it!
Happy New Year,everyone!