Sharkara Varatti
Served as a component of Onasadya, this is Kerala Style Banana Candy. Raw bananas are deep-fried, coated in jaggery syrup, and seasoned with cardamom, cumin, and dry ginger.
Ingredients
- 500 gms Plantains
- 250 gms Jaggery
- 1/2 tsp Cumin powder
- 1/2 tsp Dried ginger powder (chukku)
- 3 Crushed cardamom
- 2 tsp Rice flour (I used only 1 tsp)
- 1 tsp Sugar
- Oil for deep frying (you can use sunflower or coconut oil)
Instructions
- Pat dry the washed and peeled bananas with a kitchen tissue. Slice into thin half moon shapes of even thickness.
- Deep fry in hot oil till crisp.
- Sprinkle a little salt water in the oil (be careful while doing this, it may splash). Stir again so that the salt is evenly absorbed by the chips. When the spluttering subsides, remove the chips from the oil, place in a tissue paper. Let the chips cool completely.
- Dissolve the jaggery in 1 cup water.
- Strain and heat to make a syrup of one thread consistency. To know whether the jaggery syrup has reached one thread consistency, add a drop of the syrup to cold water if it doesn't dissolve in water, it has reached the right consistency.
- Lower the flame and stir the banana chips into the syrup. Mix well to coat the chips uniformly with the syrup.Sprinkle the cumin, chukku (if using) and cardamom powders. Stir gently, taking care not to break the chips.
- Remove from fire and sprinkle over with a mixture of rice flour and sugar. Stir till separated and dry. Cool and store in airtight containers.
Notes
- Use firm but unripe bananas to make this.
- Though the recipe calls for 250 gms of jaggery, I used only 200-225 gms. Please do a taste test of the jaggery to see the sweetness level and adjust accordingly.
- The “frying” part of bananas may take some time, but you will get there, have a bit of patience 😉
- Melt the jaggery first, strain, and then make the syrup.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!