Panang kizhangu (Palmyra sprout) is popular among south Indians & Sri Lankans. We usually steam the palmyra sprouts, pound them when dried, and relish the pounded palmyra sprout as a savory snack. Sri Lankans boil these sprouts, dry them, make into a flour and use the flour to make sweet puttu, koozh or add into some non-veg curries as a thickening agent.

Traditionally palmyra sprouts were cooked either by steaming or by roasting them directly over the hot coal in an old-fashioned Indian stove. Generally cooked sprouts were kept on the terrace for a day or two until dried completely and later pounded using ural & ulakkai, a large mortar (2-3 feet high) & pestle (about 5 feet length). My paternal grandmother used to pound them with great finesse that each & every bits were of same size. Nowadays we pressure cook these sprouts and grind into a fine powder using mixer-grinder.