Plantain Stem Soup.

Plantain stem is full of fibres! Tamilians use it as vegetable…only when it is tender. The bottom most stem is bit hard…with this tuff fibre, where it makes cooking hard! Sometimes….when you leave these stem for couple of days in fridge…there you go! Most of the moisture dries up! Only at those occasions we prefer juicing them or making soup recipe! Yeah….plantain stem is appreciated for its fibre….it helps to clarify ones gall stones! Its a perfect soluction for kidney trobles! The water content! Amazing…teeny little stem holds so much of nutritious water! If the stem is very slender and tender….eat them raw in lemon salad or yogurts based salad! Mid sized stem….poriyal, kootu and sambar. Again…bottom most generally discarded or thought unpalatable stem….goes into soup,juice or rasam recipe!

Ingredients:

To be Toasted Each Seperately and Powdered Togather:

Coriander seeds 1 fistful
Whole peppercorns 2 spoons
Cumin seeds 2 spoons

Coarsely Wet-Grind These:

Chilies 1-2
Onion 1 small bulb
Ginger 1-2″ piece
Garlic 2-3 beads
Tomato 1
Curry leaves few
Coriander leaves few

To chop:

Plantain stem – finely grated/juiced(depends upon the stem you got)
Scalion 1
Tomato 1
Cilantro leaves few
Salt
Turmeric 1 pinch

Sesonning:

Cumin seeds 1/2 spoon
Peppercorns 1/4 spoon
Curry leaves few
Oil few spoons.

Method:

In a wide pot/dutch oven, heat oil. Add pepper, cumin and curry leaves. Wait till it pops up.

Add chopped ingredients, salt and pinch of turmeric to it. Saute for few minutes.

Add 4-6 mugs of water…bring it to boil. Add powdered spices too. Let this boil really well over low-medium heat! Maybe till all the spices and stem’s flavour steep into the soup liquid.

Remove from heat and serve immediately as a starter. Serves best as a in between- meals.