R100Baked Ethakka Appam
Pazham pori out of the oven, and what that costs
R103
Unnakkaya, Rebuilt
The Mappila plantain pod, steamed rather than fried in ghee
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
The re-engineeringSteamed instead of fried in ghee, and the jaggery in the filling cut from a usual 60 g to 20 g. The dough is the same pounded nendran it has always been. What goes is roughly 12–15 g of ghee a portion — about 110 kcal and 8 g of saturated fat — and nothing else.
Unnakkaya is Thalassery's signature, and the name describes the shape: a small tapering pod, deliberately made to look like one. Boiled nendran is pounded to a dough, flattened in the palm, wrapped around a filling of coconut, egg and raisin, sealed into a spindle and fried. The technique is the pleasure — it is a hand-shaped food, and Mappila kitchens taught it mother to daughter inside a single household for generations. Steaming keeps every part of that except the frying pan.
Before you start: The dough must be worked while warm. Cold pounded plantain cracks when you shape it and no amount of kneading brings it back, so cook the filling first and have it cool and ready before the plantain comes out of the steamer.
Unnakkaya, Rebuilt
Active 35 minutes Total 55 minutes
Scale
5 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓500 g (2 large) ripe nendran plantains, unpeeled
- ✓For the filling:
- ✓60 g (⅔ cup) fresh grated coconut
- ✓1 egg (about 50 g), lightly beaten
- ✓20 g (1½ tbsp, packed) jaggery, grated
- ✓10 g (1 tbsp) raisins, chopped
- ✓3 g (½ tsp) ground cardamom
- ✓5 g (1 tsp) sesame (gingelly) oil, for your hands and the steamer basket
Allergens: Egg, sesame, sulphites.
Equipment: Steamer; potato masher or a heavy pestle; small pan for the filling; banana leaf or parchment to line the steamer basket. Substitute: a food processor will turn the plantain to glue rather than dough — use a masher. A ricer works well and is faster.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 209 kcal |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Fibre | 4 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 32 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 36 g |
| Sugars | 29 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| Saturated fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 20 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
- Steam the whole unpeeled plantains over rolling water until a skewer goes through the thickest part with no resistance, . Fully soft, unlike R102 — this fruit is going to be pounded.
- Cook the filling: warm the coconut in a dry pan over a low flame until pale gold and smelling of biscuit, . Add the beaten egg and stir constantly until it has set into fine curds through the coconut and no wet egg remains, . Take it off the heat, stir in the jaggery, raisins and cardamom, and set it aside to cool completely, .
- Peel and pound the plantains while hot, discarding the central seed line if it is fibrous, working with the masher until you have a smooth, stiff, slightly tacky dough with no lumps, . It should hold a thumbprint.
- Divide the dough into 10 pieces of about 50 g each and keep them covered with a cloth; the surface dries and cracks within five minutes uncovered.
- Shape: oil your palms lightly, flatten a piece into a 9 cm oval about 6 mm thick, place a heaped teaspoon of filling down the centre, and fold the dough over it. Seal the long edge by pressing, then roll gently between your palms while tapering both ends into points. Any gap will open in the steamer.
- Steam the pods on an oiled banana leaf or parchment, in a single layer with space between them, for , until the surface has gone from matt to faintly glossy and a pod lifts cleanly from the leaf without sticking.
- Rest before moving them. Straight from the steamer they are fragile; after five minutes the starch sets and they firm up.
Why this worksPounding hot plantain works its starch into a cohesive dough — the reason it must be done warm. Setting the egg into the coconut at step 2 does two jobs: it adds about 2 g of protein a portion, and it binds the filling so it cannot run out through a seam. Frying was never structural here; the dough holds itself together.
Sourcing note
Nendran is not optional here — the dough depends on its dense, dry, low-water flesh, and a Cavendish banana will not hold a shape at all. Frozen nendran, thawed, works. The fruit should be ripe but not soft: yellow with black-tipped ridges, firm to a thumb. A fully soft banana gives a wet dough that will not seal, and the only remedy at that point is to add 20 g of rice flour, which changes the texture.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 32 g of net carbohydrate and 29 g of sugars a portion. This is a sweet and it should be treated as one; the rebuilt version is a better sweet, not a free one. One pod rather than two is 105 kcal and 16 g of net carbohydrate, which is a sensible tea-time item.
Cholesterol: 5 g of saturated fat rather than 13 g. Over a household that makes unnakkaya for every Ramadan iftar, that is the largest single saving in this chapter after R100.
Blood pressure: 20 mg a portion, from the egg. There is no added salt.
Swap it
No egg in the filling → 15 g more coconut. Consequence: the filling is looser and more likely to escape, protein falls from 3 g to about 2 g, and the dish becomes vegan.
Dates for jaggery and raisins, 40 g chopped → Consequence: a darker, chewier filling with a little fibre; sugars land around 27 g.
Fried in ghee, honestly → Consequence: the second panel above, and a crisp shell the steamer cannot give. If it is Eid, fry them and count them. (Allergen: this swap introduces milk.)
Baked at 190°C (375°F) for 18–20 minutes, brushed with 8 g of oil → Consequence: a drier, firmer pod with a little colour; about 25 kcal more a portion than steaming and about 110 kcal less than frying.
Scale it
At 20 pods steam in two batches. The dough dries while it waits, so keep the unshaped portions under a damp cloth.
Make ahead · store · freeze
Shape the pods up to 1 day ahead and keep them covered in the fridge, steaming from cold with 3 minutes added. Cooked: fridge 3 days. Freeze 2 months shaped and raw, on a tray until solid then bagged, steamed from frozen for 18–20 minutes — this is the better way to freeze them. Cooked pods also freeze for 1 month and re-steam in 12–14 minutes. Reheat by steaming only.
Leftovers
Slice cold pods into 1 cm rounds and warm them on a dry tawa until the cut faces caramelise, 2 minutes a side. Or crumble two into 200 ml of warm milk with cardamom, which is a serviceable payasam and uses up the ones that split.
Troubleshooting
Cracked and split in the steamer: the dough was worked cold, or a seam was not sealed. Both are shaping faults, and the pods still taste right.
Wet, unworkable dough: the fruit was overripe. Work in 20 g of rice flour, accepting a slightly pastier texture.
Filling leaked: too much filling, or the seam was on the underside. A heaped teaspoon is the limit for a 50 g piece of dough.
Gluey: the plantain was processed rather than mashed.
Serve with
R106 Chai, unsweetened · sulaimani — black tea with lime, the Malabar after-feast tea, at R111 · R107 Sambharam
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