Lafu Tharo Paknam

Banana Blossom salted Pan Cake: A popular side dish for Meeteis

Side Dish

Vegetarian

Snack

Kanglei

Steamed

Spicy

Lafu Tharo Paknam

Sunday, August 14, 2022 By : MATHOU KHANGEMBAM

5.0 1 Reviews Add Review

Banana Blossom salted Pan Cake: A popular side dish for Meeteis

7 Ingredients
20 Mins
4 People

The word paknam can be split into two - 'pak' means flat and 'nam' means press. Paknam is famous for its taste and uniqueness. Paknam is a steamed food made of various vegetables, fish or any other meat. A salted pan cake of Manipur usually made from gram floor, chives flavoured with ngari (fermented fish) and wrapped in a turmeric leaf. It's tasty as well as healthy. Eaten as a side dish and street food by the Manipuri people since time immemorial, Paknam also known as Manipuri pizza, is one of the must for Manipuri cuisine lovers. 
Paknam has multiple flavors depending on the ingredients used, including besan paknam (gram floor), mushroom flavours - kanglayen paknam (dried split grill mushroom), uyen paknam (shitake mushroom), khongdrum maku paknam (bottle ground skin), khajing paknam (shrimp), fish flavor (nga paknam as nganam), banana flower (lafu tharo), chicken flavor (yen paknam) and so on. It is also a street food available in most street food stalls. Paknam is famous for its taste and uniqueness. Manipuris made paknam easily at home and ate throughout the season. One main component to be a paknam is Turmeric fresh leaves which acts as envelope for the ingredients while steam. These local people used to make morok metpa (smashed green chilli) with burned ngari using turmeric leaf, without any other ingredient it gives a unique aroma and with the smell people feel suddenly empty stomach and mouthwatering.
Here we will make Paknam using Banana Blossom as main ingredient and it is called Lafu Tharo Paknam in local language.

Lafu Tharo Paknam

Preparation Time
5 minutes

Cook Time
15 minutes

Total Time
20 minutes

Servings
4 servings

Ingredients
7 ingredients

Directions
4 steps

Ingredients

Primary

	2-3 - Turmeric Leaves Take fresh
	4 cups of chopped - Banana flower
	3 cups - Besan
	1/2 cup of chopped - Winter leek
	as required - Salt
	few leaves - Coriander leaves
	1 tsp - Turmeric powder

Directions

1 Preparation
Chop all the required ingredients (Banana blossoms, chives) and mix well with turmeric powder.
2 The Smash
Smash the mixture with besan (gram floor) and water, add salt as prefer, and make a shape of rectangular and flat with a thickness of 1 inch approx. Place the smashed mixture on the turmeric leaves and envelope.
3 The steam time
There are different ways of cooking paaknam, either roast it over a pan or steamed it first and roast it over a pan or backed in an oven. You can use toaster press instead of using pan. Here oven will be used to cook paaknam. Place it inside an oven and steam for 10-15 minutes.
4
Take out and put on a banana leaf cut into pieces. Now paaknam is ready to serve. Normally Manipuri people used to place it on the surface of rice while cooking and at the end, it's roast over a pan.