Pazham Chips | Sweet Banana Chips | Ripe Plantain Chips (Step by Step Pics)

Wishing all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year !!

Hope everyone had a great start this year and hoping the pandemic scare gets over soon with the coming of vaccines. Though majority have only bad to share about 2020 but if you look close there were many good things that happened last year too. Before the lock down, family meals were a rare entity or just for dinner but these days during corona we had most of the meals together. Kids became more tech-savvy and more independent to do online projects and assignments. We have learned to refrain from frequent hospital visits for cold, minor injuries and have started using grandma's tips and tricks. Also, people have started to be more hygiene freak and health conscious. Although there wasn't much outing or sight seeing or shopping but whatever the family time we had been very good. Though I too felt bad about lock down and bored by sitting at home but when thinking of the first line health care workers, many people who had to move out to earn their living then our pain is nothing. Anyways let's hope 2021 is better for all.

Today's post is a simple post that many of us have tasted sometime or the other in Kerala. I tasted these chips the first time after marriage as we didn't have these sweet chips in our part of Kerala. H's place had these in bakeries at Thrissur and I was in love with them because of its sweetness and crunch. I used to buy these chips from H's place and take home. As years passed by, we have started getting these chips all over Kerala. Now its an easy entity in most of Kerala bakeries. My love for these chips made me try these multiple times till I cracked the right selection of these bananas(plantains). There were multiple flaws due to the wrong selection of these bananas(plantains). After the selection, its quite easy to make these chips just like the regular Kerala chips and there you go with your favorite chips fried in no time. Do give this a try with the tips and tricks mentioned below. Enjoy !!

Preparation time ~ 10 minutes

Frying time ~ 20 minutes

Serves ~ one jar of chips

Author ~ Julie

Ingredients

semi ripe plantain 5

salt water 2 tbsp

oil to deep fry(preferably coconut oil)

Method

• Please select the right bananas to make this chips else the chips gets stickier in oil and remains soft even after frying deep brown. Selecting the right banana is the key to get this chips right. So select the ones (in the pic) just started to be yellow with the stem(thandu) still green. If you select any ripe bananas more than this wouldn't be proper to get the right texture.
• Cut open the peel of the bananas using a knife(don't wash or drop in water)  and try using a slicer or with the help of a knife cut long slices. That's the usual way we get sweet chips in bakeries else cutting rounds in regular kerala chips can also be done though. I made half as roundels and half as sliced long. The roundels are easy to grate using cutters. The cutting part was taking long unlike for the regular kerala chips where you can directly hold the grater on top of hot oil and grate over it.

• Heat oil in a wok and when its hot enough(drop a slice and check if it goes down the pan and then floats on top of oil then oil is ready). Drop slices in the oil and fry both sides using a slotted spoon by flipping all sides. Add a tsp of salt water in the oil (there will be splattering and buzzing sounds but don't worry it may take a minute to settle down.These chips turn brown faster so keep flame a bit low and as soon as there is no much bubbling in oil, drain the chips using a slotted spoon. The chips may be soft immediately after draining so leave to cool.
• Place on paper towels and after 5 mins move to a dry utensil or earthern pot(mann chatti) till it cools down completely before storing. Store in air tight containers.

NOTES

* Select the right kind of bananas as described above and in pic. Else the chips may not turn correct.

* The addition of salt water is optional but it enhances the sweetness of the bananas.