Kerala cuisine - III BHM Prodn. Practicals on June 25th & 26th June 2007

KERALA CUISINE (III Semester BHM Production Practicals on 26th & 27th June 2007)
Kerala is known as the "land of Spices". Even the Kerala cuisine is known for its spicy and hot foods. Traditionally, in Kerala food is served on a banana leaf. One has to take food with right hand. Almost every dish prepared in Kerala has coconut and spices to flavour the local cuisine giving it a sharp pungency that is heightened with the use of tamarind, while coconut gives it its richness, absorbing some of the tongue-teasing, pepper-hot flavours. Tender coconut water is a refreshing nutritious thirst quencher. The crunchy papadam, banana and jackfruit chips can give French-fry a run for their money any day.
Kerala cuisine is a combination of Vegetables, meats and seafood flavoured with a variety of spices. Seafood's are main diet of Coastal Kerala. Whereas Vegetable is the main diet in plains of Kerala and Meat is the main course among tribal and northern Kerala. The typical Kerala feast served on a banana leaf is a sumptuous spread of rice and more than 14 vegetable dishes, topped with `Payasam', the delicious sweet dessert cooked in milk. Some of the delicious are,
Rice
While Plain Steamed rice is usually taken with dishes in Sadya (Vegetarian), it is the basic ingredient. Biryanis (in Non vegetarian meals of the Arabic tradition).
Avial
Combination of vegetables like pumpkin, drumstick, potato, chilly etc and coconut sauce, it is a very popular side dish. Even mango, jackfruit and cashew nuts are included in Avial.

Thoran
Vegetables like Cabbage, Coconut, and Green chilly and mustard seed are either dried or steamed with spices like turmeric. Sometimes green papaya is used.

Sambar
It is made out of drumstick, tomato, potato, onion etc mixed with turmeric powder, chilly powder, coriander seeds and many more spices.
Olen
Beans and gourds mixed with several spices like chilly powder.

Kaalen
Made using Banana and curd mixed with coconut paste and green chilly.

Rasam
Rasam is a best for digestion. It is similar to a clear broth; Rasam may be flavoured tamarind, lemon, tomato, lentils and/or pepper.

Pachadi
Main ingredients are Pumpkin, Coconut milk and curd with green chilly. A pleasing
Payasam:
Sugared rice or noodles, served as a sweet.

Snacks
Popular snacks include banana chips, yam crisps, and Tapioca chips deep-fried with
Chilly powder.

Sweets

There's no shortage of sweets in Kerala. Jaggery is often used as a sweetener. It can be boiled and made into paste form. It can be used as a sweet sauce with curd or fruit. Milk rice, coconut rice, or vermicelli sweetened with jaggery is common dessert.

Avalose is a rice-based sweet rolled into a ball with jaggery.

Unniappam is pulped jackfruit, mixed with rice flour and jaggery, wrapped in a leaf and steamed.

Pradhaman is lentils boiled with coconut, cardamom and ginger. Jaggery and cashew nuts are also added. Halwa is made from bananas.
Appam is a Kerala favourite and there are many varieties. For breakfast this pancake is usually made from a rice flour and toddy batter. It has a thick, spongy center and very fine lacy outer section. It's usually taken with spiced sauce, sometimes with fruit.

Puttu is another popular breakfast dish. It is made from rice flour dough combined with shredded coconut steamed in a bamboo stick. It is served with banana or plain with sugar.

Idi-appam is rice noodles usually served with coconut milk but they may also accompany meat dishes.
CUISINE OF KERALA

The essential ingredient of the daily diet is rice. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, it is some rice preparation or the other, served along with a variety of fish. Fish is consumed in a variety of ways – it is preserved after being dried and salted or cooked in delicious coconut gravy. Prawns, shrimps and crustaceans constitute some of the other famous delicacies.

Morning Meals

After the morning dose of coffee, a typical malayali household serves breakfast that may either consist of soft idlis, prepared out of a paste of fermented rice and black pulses, or dosa, an oval spread of the same ingredients. Well-seasoned appams or periappams, made by mixing this paste with tomatoes, onions and other handy vegetables, are some of the
Other morning culinary delights

Midday Meals

Midday meals consist of boiled rice that may be mixed with moru (curd or butter milk) or Rasam (thin clear pepper water or soup) and a range of vegetables. Pachadi is a delicious dish, cooked out of tiny pieces of mango, mixed with hot spices. Sambar, pulses prepared with vegetables is a standard daily fare. A coconut-based dry fish dish that is mixed with minutely chopped vegetables, herbs and curry leaves, and similar to Avial, which is cooked in a sauce, is another delectable dish. Pappaddams, or crunchy round flakes made of rice flour, chutneys (a kind of sauce) and pickles, are scrumptious additions without which a meal is incomplete.

Wheat preparations are more popular in Muslim establishments. Well-prepared spirals called parottas and pathiris are made from refined flour, fried in oil and served with vegetables and curries. Chappati, poori (a sort of baked or deep fried equivalent of bread) may be cooked optionally.

Diverse Use of Ingredients

A mélange of aromas resulting from the free use of pepper, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, ginger, chillies, and mustard, used in most curries, fill the kitchens of the well-to-do, but generally the poorer folks content themselves with kanji (rice with water) and take fish with tapioca. Most dishes in Kerala are cooked in coconut oil and are incomplete without a mandatory use of coconut in some form or the other.

Kerala Snacks

Kerala is equally famous for traditionally homemade snacks a variety of banana chips, and ricer cookies, are served with evening coffee

MENU 3
Chemmeen Varuthathu
Appam/Pachakari Ishtew
Beans Thoran
Erucheri
Avial
Pacchadi
Chorru
Meen Vevvichatu (Spicy Kerala Fish Curry)/Kappa
Pappadam/Achaar
Ada Pradhaman

Chemmeen Varuthathu

Ingredients:

• Prawns 3 kg
• Lemon 12nos
• Red chilli paste 100 gm
• Turmeric powder 10 gm
• Cumin powder 15 gm
• Ginger-garlic paste 100 gm
• Salt to taste
• Oil to fry

Method:
• Clean, shell and de-vein the prawns
• Mix all the remaining ingredients, except oil, and apply it to the prawns.
• Keep aside for half an hour to marinate.
• Heat oil in a shallow pan and fry the prawns four at a time.
• Cook for three minutes, remove and drain.
• Serve hot, garnished with rings of onion and fried curry leaves.
Appam
Raw rice 4 kg (soaked for 6 hrs)
Coconut 5 nos
Cooked rice or pressed rice 250 gms (optional)
Coconut water 3 litres
Yeast granules 50 gms(dissolved in some coconut water or little hot water)
Salt and sugar to taste
1. Drain the soaked rice and grind it along with the coconut shavings and cooked rice to a fine thick paste. Coconut water may be preferably used instead of water for grinding. Add the yeast and mix lightly. Mix in the salt and sugar to taste. Allow to ferment at room temperature for at least 6 hours.
2. Heat a small non-stick wok. Pour approximately half a cup of batter and quickly but gently swirl the pan around such that only a thin layer of the batter covers the sides and a thick layer collects at the bottom. Cover with a lid and cook each appam on medium heat for about 3 minute(s) or till the edges have become golden crisp and the centre is soft and spongy. Another sign of doneness would be when the edges start coming off the wok.
TIPS:
• In case coconut water is unavailable, water may be used instead. However coconut water is preferred since it acts as a fermenting agent.
• Coconut water should not be thrown once the coconut is broken. The coconut can be cracked over a bowl to collect the water. Coconut water is very nutritious; hence, one can drink it or use it in stews instead of water. In this recipe, it has been used for grinding the coconut and rice since it acts as a fermenting agent. This will make the pancakes fluffy and spongy.
• A special traditional metal wok called 'appam chatty' in Kerala is used to cook the appams. Oil is a must in these woks. Nowadays a special non-stick 'appam chatty' has replaced the metal one giving oil-free appams. Any small non-stick wok can be used for this purpose.
• A well-fermented batter will form small holes (like a lace) all over the appam while cooking. This makes the appams very light.

Pachakari Ishtew
Potato ½ kg
Soaked green peas ½ kg
Beans ¼ kg
Carrot(diced) ¼ kg
Green chillies 50 gms
Ginger(grated) 100 gms
Garlic(chopped) 100 gms
Onion(large) ½ kg
Small onions 150 gms
Whole garam masala 10 gms
Thick coconut milk 1 litre
Thin coconut milk 2 litres
Salt to taste
For tempering:-
Coconut oil 100 ml
Dry red chilies (Kollamulaku) 25 gms
Small onions (Cheriyulli) 100 gms
(finely sliced)
Mustard seeds 50 gms

For making stew:-
• In a kadai, saute the onion, ginger, garlic, whole garam masala, large onions, and small onions and slit green chillies.
• When onion starts becoming transluscent, add the boiled vegetables and stir.
• Add 1 cup of thin coconut milk and mix well.
• Cook on high flame for 5 mins, add the thick coconut milk and stir.
Do not heat after this.
• Add pepper if needed.
• Little of Ari podi (Rice flour) can be added to make the stew thick.
• Splutter mustard seeds, small onions, and dry red chillies and curry leaves in ghee.
• Garnish the stew with the above.
• Chicken also can be added in this stew

Avial
Ingredients:
• 200g Beans
• 200g Yam
• 200 g Ash gourd
• 3 nos. Raw bananas
• 5 nos. Drumsticks
• 200g Potato
• 200g Shelled peas
• 1 litre Sour curds
• 10g Turmeric powder
• 1 bunch Curry leaves
• 500ml Coconut oil
• Salt to taste

Paste:
• Coconut 2 nos.
• Green chillies 100g
• Cumin seeds 30g

Method

• Grind together the coconut, green chillies and cumin seeds to make a fine paste, adding very little water. Mix the curd to the ground paste and keep aside.
• Peel and chop all the vegetables into 3-inch lengths.
• Cook the vegetables separately with very little water in a heavy-bottomed vessel.
• Mix all the cooked vegetables together with salt and turmeric powder.
• Add the paste and heat through, taking care to prevent curdling.
• Add the coconut oil and curry leaves and mix well. Do not heat.
• Serve hot with rice.
Beans Thoran
Ingredients
Beans 1 kg chopped
Coconut freshly grated 1 no.
Turmeric powder 10g
Green chillies 5g
Mustard & cumin seeds 20g
Urad dal 20g
Curry leaves few
Salt to taste
Coconut Oil 50ml
Method:
1. Boil the Beans with turmeric powder & salt
2. In the mean time grind to paste (coarsely) coconut, & green chillies.
3. Once the vegetables are boiled, heat oil in pan, add mustard and cumin seeds, urad dal, curry leaves & allow it to splutter.
4. Then add the beans & mix it well. Fry it for a minute, then add the paste & mix well.
5. Cook it for 5 min.
6. Serve hot with hot rice & sambhar.
Ericheri
Ingredients
Red pumpkin 1 kg
Yam ½ kg
Black Pepper corns 15 gms
Cumin seeds 15 gms
Red Chillies 50 gms
Turmeric powder 10 gms
Coconut (grated) 1 no.
Coconut Oil 100 ml
Mustard seeds 15 gms
Black gram dal 15 gms
Asafoetida 5 gms
Curry leaves 1 big bunch
Salt to taste
Method:
1. Cut the vegetables into big pieces. Boil with water, turmeric powder and salt.
2. Grind pepper, green chillies, cumin seeds and half the quantity of grated coconut with a little water. Add this ground mixture to half boiled vegetables.
3. In a hard bottomed pan, pour in the oil, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, black gram dal, curry leaves and the remaining grated coconut. Fry till the coconut turns colour and add to the boiled vegetable mixture. If it turns out too thick, you can add water.
Pacchadi
Ingredients
White Pumpkin (squash) 1 kg
Coconut 2 nos.
Green Chilly 50 gms
Salt As required
Coconut oil 100 ml
Mustard seeds 15 gms
Curry leaves 1 bunch
Shallot 100 gms
Preparation:
Peel the pumpkin and grate. In a thick bottomed vessel, add very little water, slit green chilly, grated pumpkin and cook. Grind coconut and shallots to a fine paste. Add this paste to the cooked pumpkin and bring to boil. Splutter mustard seeds in coconut oil, add curry leaves and pour it over the pachadi and serve it chilled.


Meen Vevvichatu (SPICY KERALA FISH CURRY)
Ingredients
• King Fish Cleaned 3 kg
• Kodampuli boiled in water 20 nos.
• Curry Leaves 1 Big bunch
• Red Chilli Powder 100g
• Turmeric Powder 10g
• Fenugreek 10g
• Coconut Oil 200ml
• Ginger 100g
• Garlic 50g
• Mustard seeds 30g
• Salt to taste
Method:
• Remove the skin, and cut the fish into 1 x 2 inch size rectangular pieces, clean well, drain and keep aside.
• Grind the red chilli powder, turmeric powder, ginger, and garlic with little water, to make a smooth paste.
• Heat oil in a pan, put the mustard seeds, and when they start sputtering, add the curry leaves, and the grinded paste.
• Fry the paste at a medium heat, till the paste becomes consistent.
• Add the water containing the extract of Kodampuli, check the level of sourness.
• When the water starts boiling add the fish pieces, and salt. Add water enough to cover the pieces.
• Cook at a gentle heat. Keep stirring lightly (to avoid breaking of fish) in between, or just shake the pan.
• When the pieces are almost cooked, increase the heat and cook till the gravy thickens, and the oil is visible.
• Serve hot with rice, or tapioca. This dish could be preserved for a few days.




Ada Pradhaman

Ingredients:

• Ada 1 kg
• Jaggery 3 kg
• Ghee ½ kg
• Cardamom 30 g
• Coconut 6 nos.
• Raisins 250 g
• Cashew nuts 250 g

Method:

• Melt Jaggery and keep aside.
• Boil water and keep the ada in it till it is cooked soft. Strain after 10 minutes and keep aside.
• Mix the melted jaggery with the cooked ada and stir for ten minutes in low fire.
• Take two extracts of the coconut milk and add the second extract the above mixture.
• Boil this until it becomes thick. Take it off the fire and add the first extract of milk.
• Fry the cashew and raisins and ghee and garnish the Payasam.