R063Cabbage Thoran
The master thoran: shredded cabbage, crushed coconut, turmeric
Recipes › Vegetables: The Half of the Plate
R078
Banana Stem Pachadi
Vazhapindi in curd with ground coconut and mustard
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
The re-engineeringEight grams of oil, all of it in a finishing tempering, and no sugar. A pachadi is often sweetened; here the curd's acidity and the coconut's own sweetness carry it, and the dish is better for the restraint.
The banana plant gives Kerala four vegetables and a serving dish, and the stem is the one that gets thrown away outside Kerala. It is 39 kcal and 8.6 g of available carbohydrate per 100 g with the texture of a firm water chestnut, and it is unusually high in fibre for something so watery. Preparing it is the whole job: the stem has to be peeled down to its pale core, sliced, and de-stringed by winding the fibres round a finger as you go. Twenty minutes, once, and then you understand why Kerala keeps it.
Before you start: Cut the stem into the acidulated water as you go. Banana stem oxidises to a dull pink-brown within two or three minutes of being cut, and once it has, it stays that colour. Whisk the curd smooth and leave it out of the fridge.
Banana Stem Pachadi
Active 30 minutes Total 40 minutes
Scale
6 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓500 g (about 1 stem, 30 cm) banana stem (vazhapindi), outer sheaths removed, sliced 5 mm and de-stringed, held in acidulated water
- ✓1.5 g (¼ tsp) ground turmeric
- ✓3 g (½ tsp) salt, or M07
- ✓60 g (¾ cup) freshly grated coconut
- ✓10 g (2) green chillies
- ✓2 g (½ tsp) cumin seed
- ✓2 g (½ tsp) mustard seed, for the paste
- ✓300 g (1¼ cups) thick curd, whisked smooth
- ✓8 g (1½ tsp) coconut oil
- ✓1 g (¼ tsp) mustard seed, for the tempering
- ✓2 g (1 sprig) curry leaves
Allergens: Milk, mustard.
Equipment: Bowl of water with a squeeze of lime or a spoon of buttermilk, for holding the cut stem; saucepan; mixie; small pan for tempering. Substitute: none required.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 120 kcal |
| Protein | 2.7 g |
| Fibre | 3.0 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 10.5 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 13.5 g |
| Sugars | 3.9 g |
| Fat | 7.5 g |
| Saturated fat | 5.9 g |
| Sodium | 240 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Prepare the stem: strip the fibrous outer sheaths until you reach the pale, tender core; slice 5 mm; and as you slice, wind the long fibres round a finger and pull them away. Drop each slice into the acidulated water. Then dice the slices to 1 cm.
- Simmer the drained stem with the turmeric, salt and 200 ml water, covered, until translucent and tender with a faint crunch remaining, . Drain off all but about 3 tablespoons of liquid.
- Grind the coconut, green chilli, cumin and the 2 g of mustard seed to a coarse paste with 3 tablespoons water. The mustard in the paste is what makes this a pachadi rather than a curd curry, and it should be perceptible.
- Stir in the paste and cook on a low flame until the raw coconut smell lifts, . Then take the pan off the heat and let it stand .
- Fold in the whisked curd off the heat. It must not boil. If the pan is too hot to hold a hand above comfortably, wait another minute.
- Temper: heat the oil in the small pan, pop the 1 g of mustard 20–30 seconds, add the curry leaves 5–10 seconds, and pour over. Serve at room temperature or lightly chilled, which is how a pachadi is eaten on a leaf.
Why this worksGround raw mustard seed is the defining flavour of a pachadi: crushing it wets the seed's own myrosinase, which breaks glucosinolates down into pungent isothiocyanates, and because the paste is never properly cooked those compounds survive to the table. That is also why the curd must go in off the heat — heat would both split the curd and destroy the pungency in one move.
Sourcing note
Fresh banana stem is sold in Indian and Sri Lankan groceries in the Gulf, Singapore and parts of the UK, sometimes ready-sliced in water, which is worth paying for. In North America it is easiest found frozen, or tinned in brine — rinse tinned stem twice and skip step 2's cooking almost entirely, and know that its texture is softer and its flavour flatter. Where there is none: peeled and thinly sliced celery stalks and water chestnuts together, 250 g of each, give a surprisingly close approximation of the crunch, though not the faint bitterness. Cucumber pachadi (vellarikka pachadi) is the better fallback and is a genuine Kerala dish in its own right; use 500 g of peeled, seeded cucumber and cook it 3 minutes only.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 10.5 g net carbohydrate per serving, and the curd contributes protein and lactic acid. Fermented dairy shows the most consistent inverse associations with weight, type 2 diabetes and blood pressure of any dairy category in the cohort literature, and those are observational associations rather than proof of effect.
Blood pressure: 240 mg sodium, or about 180 mg with M07. Curd itself carries about 46 mg per 100 g before any salt.
Cholesterol: 5.9 g saturated fat per serving, split between the coconut and the curd. Made with low-fat curd it falls to about 4.5 g.
Swap it
Banana stem → cucumber (vellarikka), 500 g peeled and seeded, cooked 3 minutes. A real Kerala dish rather than a compromise.
Banana stem → 400 g grated white radish, or 400 g of ash gourd. Radish is sharper; ash gourd is closer in blandness.
Curd → 300 ml thin coconut milk with 10 g tamarind. Vegan, thinner, and no longer a pachadi in the strict sense.
Add 60 g of pineapple, finely chopped → the madhura pachadi of a sadya leaf. Sugars rise about 2 g per serving, and it is a different dish with a different job.
Make ahead · store · freeze
Prepare and cook the stem up to 2 days ahead and keep it refrigerated in its liquid; add the paste and curd on the day. Fridge 2 days finished, and the curd sharpens noticeably. Do not freeze. Do not reheat — serve at room temperature or cold. Warming a pachadi is how you split it.
Leftovers
Thin with water and a pinch of M06 and drink it as a sambharam-adjacent glass, or spoon it over rice as a cooling course, which is its traditional place in a sadya's sequence.
Troubleshooting
Grey-brown stem: it was not held in acidulated water. Flavour is unaffected; appearance is not recoverable.
Split and watery: the curd met a hot pan. Off the heat, and wait two minutes longer than you think you need.
Stringy in the mouth: the fibres were not pulled out at step 1. This is the step that takes practice and there is no shortcut.
Serve with
R015 Matta Rice · R069 Avial · R071 Chena Erissery · R059 Sambar
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