How To Clean Banana Flower (Vazhaipoo)

preparation:

1. Before beginning, rub some oil on your palms and chopping board as the hands as well the board gets stained when cleaning banana flower. 
2. In a bowl take 2 to 2.5 cups water and add 4 to 5 tablespoons curd in it. Mix well and keep aside. This is the curd solution. You can also use buttermilk instead of curd solution. 

cleaning banana flower:

1. Now take the banana flower and lift the bracts or the large petals. Underneath you will see small florets attached on the top.
2. Remove these florets and collect them in a plate or bowl. You can collect some amount, clean them and again start collecting them. The bracts can be cleaned and used to serve snacks made from banana flower.
3. Now take each floret and check for the two parts that need to be discarded. 1. Tepal - these are the outer papery like covers that protects the stamens and the stigma. These translucent cover needs to be removed. You just need to pluck it from the floret.
4. 2. Style - this is a long sticky structure with a bulb like top. The bulb like top is the sticky stigma. Both style and stigma needs to be discarded. pluck it from the floret.
5. Remove the paper like cover and the style-stigma from each flower. Removing both these structures from each banana flower take a lot of time. They are removed as they are not digestible and also makes the dish bitter if added.
6. Keep on working on each flower and discard the unwanted elements in a bowl or a plate.
7. Collect each cleaned flower in a bowl. Remove the bracts. Collect the flower and clean them. 
8. A point comes when the florets become smaller in size. At this step you come across florets which are very tender and the tepal or outer cover is too tight. When you see such tender flowers, then just chop them.
9. This way keep on collecting and cleaning the flowers till you come to a point where the bracts cannot be opened. You will see a whitish colored structure and this is the banana heart. Keep it in the curd solution or buttermilk so that it does not darken. 
10. Now take the cleaned florets in parts on a chopping board and then chop them.
11. Keep the chopped banana flowers in the curd solution or buttermilk.
12. Take the banana heart. You can slice it in two parts if you want.
13. Then chop finely. 
14. Add the chopped banana heart also in the buttermilk solution. If using immediately, then you can just add in a bowl. But if you plan to use chopped banana flower after some hours, then do keep them soaked in the buttermilk solution so that they do not get darkened. Keep them refrigerated. 
15. Later use the cleaned and cut banana flower in any recipe.