If someone placed a hidden camera in my house, and watched me secretly, Ok, I know what you are thinking now, don’t think wild, you have no access to my bedroom and restroom, may be just in the living room. One activity you could see me doing is lying on the couch and day dreaming. You could even watch some of my insanities: talking to myself(mostly while cooking as if I am on a cooking show), laughing, even talking to an imaginary figure. Before you all make a statement about me, I would like to make it clear that all these insanities are confined within the walls of my house. Now, don’t even think of hiding a camera anywhere in my house:) Many times my hubby had asked me to whom are you talking to, I will be like ‘to myself ‘ and his reaction would be ‘whatever with his eyes rolling’. He is obviously too sweet to not to label me as mad.

Now you will be starting to think, isn’t this the blog for steamed plantain cake and why is she talking about all these craps. I can explain, I have a point here, since I have revealed some of my insanities, one of which is day dreaming. One daydream that keeps recurring to me is the clip of me strolling among the plantain crops that I would have in my backyard some day. Hailing from kerala, which is the land of plantain crops, could be the reason for my obsession with plantains. Almost all houses there have at least one plantain tree in their backyard. I can never forget the huge plantain crop at my grand parents. Whenever I visited them, one activity I always loved to do was to run/stroll among the plantain crops touching the leaves and looking for the bunch of plantains ready to be harvested. I even helped my grand father in harvesting the plantain, this was one memorable moments for me. I can still feel the joy I had after harvesting the plantain and eating one from the bunch. After the harvest, next thing I did was eagerly waiting for all the dishes my grandma would make out of the plantains. One dish, I wanted immediately was the plantain chips, my grandma would fall for my sugar coated request and she would start frying the chips first. It would start with the chips and followed by the variety of dishes made from the harvested plantain by my sweet grandma.

One such dish from my grandma’s edible palette is steamed plantain cake. This is an authentic South Indian dish, a Malabar dish to be precise.This recipe has been handed down for 3 generations in my family and now I pass it on to all the food lovers out there. A dish filled with lots of memories and love of my grandma.

Ingredients

• Plantain, ripe-2
• Eggs-4
• Sugar-3 tbsp, or as needed
• Cardamom powder-1/2 tsp
• Raisins- 1 handful
• Cashew nuts-2 handful
• Ghee/butter-2tsp
• Oil- required for frying

For Garnish:

• Raisins, roasted in little ghee/butter-1 handful
• Cashew nuts roasted in little ghee/butter-6

Preparation:

• Cut the plantains lengthwise and slice into small pieces.
• Fry the plantains in oil until golden brown and keep aside on a paper towel.
• In a large oven proof glass bowl, grease it with 2tsp ghee/butter and mix the eggs, sugar, cardamom powder, raisins, cashew nuts and to this add the fried plantains.
• Steam cook this mixture for 20-25 minutes

How to steam cook:

• If you don’t have a steamer, don’t worry, follow this method.
• In a large vessel, fill 1/4th of it with water. Cover the bottom of the glass bowl (with the mixture) with aluminum foil. Also, cover the top of the glass bowl tightly with aluminum foil.
• Place the glass bowl into the water in the vessel, cover the vessel with its lid. Now turn on the stove to medium flame and steam cook for 20-25 minutes, until the egg is cooked and gets fluffy.
• After it is cooked, remove from the water bath and let it cool down.
• Now run a knife along the side of the cake in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a plate and turn it upside down, the cake would nicely fall onto the plate.
• Garnish the cake with roasted raisins and cashew nuts.

Tips:

• Don’t forget to grease the bowl, otherwise the cake would stick to the bottom.
• This would make a healthy breakfast to jump start your day.
• Plantain: eggs should be in 1:2 ratio