Pazham Kumbil Appam/പഴം കുമ്പിൾ അപ്പം/ Steamed Banana Dumblings

Ingredients:

Ripe bananas- 6
Jaggery-3-4 medium size pieces (you can substitute with 1 cup of regular sugar or brown sugar)
Clarified butter/ghee- 1 tsp
Cardamom-2, crushed
Cumin seeds/ Jeera, crushed- 1/4 teaspoon
Dried ginger/ chukku, powdered- 1/4 teaspoon (optional)
Coconut, shredded-1/2-1 cup
Roasted Rice flour- 1-1.5 cup
Bay leaves/ Vazhana ila/ Parchment paper (for wrapping)
Salt- a pinch

Method:
1. Mash up the bananas. You can use a potato masher or just hands to mash them up into a fine paste (or it is also perfectly fine to leave a few chunks).

2. Scrape jaggery 

3. Select a wide and deep non-stick sauce pan and a long stemmed wooden spoon. Melt 1 tsp of ghee in the pan and combine the mashed banana, scraped jaggery, crushed cardamom, cumin, salt, and shredded coconut. Continuously stir the mixture in medium heat. You will see the consistency of the mixture changes while you stir. Sir until the mixture has become medium to thick consistency (around 10-15 min).Then, allow it to cool.  

4. Add rice flour to the banana mixture little by little and mix well until it reaches the right consistency of a smooth dough.

5.  Make a cone out of leaves and fill it it with the above dough using a spoon. If you don't have leaves, cut a sheet of parchment paper into several rectangles. Take a piece of parchment paper and make a cone. Leave one end of the paper to stick out so that it can be used to cover the top of the cone. Fill the cone with1-2 spoons of the dough. Push the dough to lower end of the cone using the back side of the spoon. Then, cover the top of the cone with paper that is sticking out from the cone.

6. Boil water in a steamer and steam for 20-30 min (To check whether it has cooked, insert a toothpick.If it is cooked, the toothpick will come out clean).

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Alternate method: Pazham Kubmil Appam from Banana Preserves
You can also prepare pazham kumbil appam starting from banana preserve. Please see my previous post on Banana Preserves. Take one cup of the banana preserve and mix it with shredded coconut and rice flour to make a smooth dough. Then follow the steps 4 and 5 to make delicious banana kumbil appam.