Malabar Unnakkaya Recipe

Unnakaya is a snack from Sothern part of Kerala India and made with bananas ,grated coconut, cardamom, and raisins. It is crunchy inside with the taste of mixed coconut and cardamom and  sweet baked banana on the periphery makes Unnakaya scrumptious even in the first bite.
Even though unnakkayya can be made in different methods here we try some without being baked.

Ingredients
Ripe banana (Kerala banana) – 2nos
Grated Coconut – 4-6tsp
Sugar – 1 ½ tsp
Cardamom powder – a pinch
Cashew nut – a few
Raisin – a few
Ghee or oil for deep frying

How to make
Boil banana (only half ripe) and squash it to a fine paste and create small balls out of it. Keep these balls aside for some time. In the meantime, heat 1tsp of ghee in a pan adds nuts, raisin, grated coconut, sugar& cardamom powder. Sauté it till the sugar completely melts and keep it aside (1-2min).
Press the banana ball with palm to make it an oval shape and place 1-2tsp of filling mixture of nuts, raisin, grated coconut, sugar& cardamom powder in to it. After the filling completes fold the dough again.
Take each unnakkayya and just rub with oil and keep on banana leaf then bake one side for 15 minutes and another side for 10 minutes at the heat of 180 degree Celsius. Bake it until each sides get golden color and enjoy the savories of it.