Kehra Na Reveya (Green Banana Satay) Recipe for the first ever Twitter #veggiehour
Tomorrow afternoon, we are launching our first ever Twitter networking hour to celebrate vegetarian cuisine. Using the hashtag #veggiehour during 1-2pm GMT on a Thursday, tweeters can get involved in sharing recipes, ideas and inspiration with other veggie food lovers from around the world.
Our Prashad Indian Vegetarian Cooking cookbook has now sold over 40,000 copies (and we’ve got some exciting news about the future which we’ll be announcing during #veggiehour) so we thought it was time to share some of our recipes for those who do not yet have a copy.
Kehra Na Reveya (or green banana satay) is a favourite of the men in the Patel family – especially Prashad co-founder Mohan. It is a dish made with green unripe bananas which give it a starchy sweetness that contrasts really nicely with the spicy peanut sauce.
Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 100g red-skinned (unroasted, unsalted) peanuts, finely chopped or blended
- 2 tsp chickpea flour, sieved
- 1¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2-4 tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- 1 handful fresh coriander, finely chopped
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 100ml sunflower oil
- 4 green unripe bananas in their skins, rinsed and dried
- 4 cm root ginger, peeled and chopped
- 3-5 fresh green chillies, seeds left in
- 3-6 cloves of garlic
- pinch of salt
Method:
Crush the chillies, garlic and ginger together with a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar to make a fine paste.
Put the chopped peanuts and chickpea flower into a medium bowl and mix together well, using your fingertips. Add the fresh coriander, turmeric, cumin seeds and oil and mix them into the flour and peanuts, still using your hands. Work everything into a lovely rich paste, then leave to rest for 15 minutes while the spices infuse.
Do not peel the bananas! Chop them into thirds, then cut each piece lengthways in quarters, leaving the last centimetre or so at one end intact to hold them together. Gently open the banana pieces and spread the cut surfaces with the spicy peanut paste. Place the pieces in a large lidded pan or frying pan. Scoop an leftover paste into the pan and dot between the banana pieces.
Place the pan over a high heat and cook for a minute. Pour 300ml of warm water into the paste bowl and swirl it around to loosen the last of it, then pour this diluted mixture into the pan, taking care to pour it in between the bananas so as not to wash the paste out of the incisions. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and leave to cook for 1 minute.
Reduce the heat to very low and leave to cook slowly for 13-15 minutes, carefully turning the banana pieces every 3-5 minutes to ensure that they are completely infused with the spicy sauce.
There is no need to rest this dish, as the flavours have had time to develop during the slow cooking process. Serve it immediately with paratha bread and kacha tomato relish. It does not reheat well (the bananas tend to fall apart), so you have a great excuse to eat it all up in one go!
Love this recipe? You’ll love the rest of our cookbook!