Kerala

We loved the tender coconut.

A mild North Indian chicken preparation, I think they called it butter chicken. One of my daughters' choice. Agreeably non-spicy. Shrimp with a green potato mash garnish. As usual, the freshness of the seafood is absolutely central to the result, and these shrimp were beached that morning. Noodles for the youngest.

Kanthari prawns. Kanthari are small fiery chillies favoured in Kerala. The chillies have been ground to a paste and liberally applied to these prawns. Unapologetically, searingly hot. Often these international places tone the heat down so as not to scare the diners, but not on this dish. So delicious. Chicken skewers with a peanut sauce. Excellent.

The resort is built on the hillside overlooking the beach. In addition to the rural styled cottages, the place is decorated with old temple ornamentation. The aim is to evoke a sense of rustic, Ayurvedic peace and contemplation. The girls all had Ayurvedic massage therapies which they found very relaxing. I'm not really keen on strangers touching me. Walking on the beach was very restful, and worked up an appetite. The beach is near Vizhingham, the bay where fish is landed. This is where our fish lady gets her seafood every day! And of course, the fish comes direct to Niraamaya. Fish and chicken from the tandoor. The fisherman's basket, in beer batter. Naan. The fisherman's basket in Kerala spices. The fat, semi-polished rice so typical of Kerala and much loved by my middle daughter. My eldest had appam and chicken stew again. A creme caramel with coconut. Chocolate torte. Warm date sponge. Cake making in India has improved massively in the last ten years. Buying western desserts was always a rather dicey proposition, but these three desserts were all lovely, especially the date sponge which had the depth of taste of dates but was also light and crumbly.

I had a big plate of fruit at breakfast. Light and refreshing. Bananas, water melon, papaya, pineapple. The lime really lifts the fruit - I've never tried that before. Also chicken sausages, scrambled eggs and toast, which all looked as you would expect. The eggs were overdone, which is standard in India.

After several hectic days, we went off to an Ayurvedic spa beach resort, The Niraamaya Surya Samudra. Sometimes it's nice just to stop. Kingfisher lager, 8.7%. It's got a little more body than lager sold in the UK, and I don't think that's just down to the %. I rarely drink lager in England. I prefer ales and such. Chilli chicken. Self explanatory! With chapati. My youngest daughter had a chicken and celery soup. Delicious. She'd had enough curry, bless her. My eldest had appam and stew, again a mild option. Conventionally breakfast food, but, on holiday, so go wild! My middle daughter went for a grilled chicken and apple salad. Not overcooked, always a risk with Western dishes in India. I think it's safe to say my family have had their annual quota of curry. Our cottage, built to look like a traditional village house, but with air conditioning, running hot water and WiFi.

Lunch at home, rather fancy presentation. Prawns with fried rice Fried mackerel Raita. Quite mild in spiciness for my family. Lovely meal for us before we headed off for a mini-break within the holiday.

Wow. There sure is a lot of tendon visible after cutting, but it all disappears to the eye when cooked. The chicken tastes great, and I can't imagine an improvement from pulling the tendons out with pliers. But you know what? I was perfectly happy with chicken drumsticks grilled without cutting the tendons - until I found this technique. Now, uncut is definitely a B rather than an A. It does add significantly to preparation time. I'm a bit scared now to try out this pliers technique!

When you're faced with 22 drumsticks it's certainly tempting to just cut through the bone. I think though, people would prefer the presentation of the whole drumstick, just with a surprisingly plump and non-stringy piece of chicken to eat. @Okanagancook have a look at this If you don't cut the tendons, the drumsticks can end up a bit dry and stringy as they cook.

I'm obviously having some problems with my second language grammar. God help I, it's all me know.

Salad hiding the lamb in the bun😋

Back home after a holiday in India. The weather in England has cooled down a bit but it's still dry and WARM, so- barbecue! Yes, grilled meat is bbq in England. Corn, with chilli to accompany A salad with apple, mozzarella, basil, radish. Sausages. Looking burnt but actually perfectly done. Chicken drumsticks. I've cut the tendons, one of the most useful tips I've learnt on eGullet. Butterflied leg of lamb. The miracle of fire. With salad in a bun. Everyone happy.

I live in the Midlands, @liuzhou I don't know Drummond Street, but I know UCL. I will bear it in mind.

There's just a bit more to come! I thought my last post might imply the end of the blog, but no. I am back in the UK in real time, but a few days left of the trip to report!

A couple of late additional photos of our breakfast at Guruvayur after the rice feeding. These were just WhatsApped to me. Puri with a potato curry. Ghee-roast dosa. Extra ghee, I guess. Paper dosa. Just paper-thin. I'm back in England as I write this. Possibly for the first time in my life, I'm nostalgic for vegetarian food.

Yes, @heidih Thanks for making me pause and reflect on this.

The fish lady came round again. My mum went a bit crazy with the squid after all the positive feedback. 2 kilograms of squid. She's making way too much food. Here's dinner: Prawns, fried. Daal. Chicken curry-quite hot this time. Beans thoran. Avial with moringa pods. I've only ever heard these called "drumsticks" in English, never "moringa," even though the Malayalam is "muringakaa" literally "moringa pods." (Some of) the squid.

Oh, you're asking a person who eats this food but never makes it. So I asked an expert, my mother. Bless her, it's my last night in India on this trip, and she offered to make me dosa as I was asking. We used to grind the grain by hand using an aatukallu. Thankfully these granite mortar and pestle are mainly ornamental now, as they require a huge amount of manual labour. We have one in the house, but it's no longer used. In our house in India we soak the urad daal and rice then use a mixi or a grinder like the one you linked. Electromechanical, in any case. My sisters in the UK use preground flours, readily available in Asian shops in most cities. I'd be lying if I said I could taste the difference.

Chammanthi is grated coconut ground with shallots, chillies, ginger and other herbs. It is served with dosa and idli. Sambar is a lentil and vegetable stew with a distinctive spice mix which includes cumin, coriander and fenugreek. If you like vegetarian food (and spice) I recommend seeking out a Tamil or Kerala restaurant.

A home breakfast. Masala dosa with chammanthi and sambar. The dosa is not as grand as a commercial one. The skills and prep for getting all that, including the masala stuffing, ready for 7am - I won't be doing this back in England. Will miss it for sure.

We were sitting around at a loose end and my brother in law had a brilliant idea-"Come on guys, let's go to the toddy shop!" It's not quite like popping down the pub. There's a disreputability and dissolution associated that's still not shaken off despite my brother in law's protestations. "Oh, no, it's not like that anymore! People go there nowadays with their families!" He's ten years older than me, retired from a career in international banking, but he still avoided answering my father who asked where we were going. "Just heading out!" Toddy (kallu) is a beer from the sap of the coconut palm. A cut made at the growing tip of the palm drips sap into a pot overnight. At dawn a man shimmies up the palm and collects the toddy. At this point it is sweet, effervescent and already 1-2% alcohol. Perfect for providing the leavening for appam, the rice flour pancakes that go with istew for breakfast. This picture of appam borrowed from later events. By the afternoon it's about 4%, by the evening maybe 6-7%. By the next day it's 10%, and apparently no higher as it is illegal to sell at a higher strength! We had the 1 day brew which was sweet and somewhat yeasty, and the 2 day brew, which was noticeably stronger with a more pungent taste, like an very strongly flavoured craft beer. Or like licking an unvarnished wooden table. Toddy shops have a reputation for cheap but authentic Malayali food. The expectation is also that the food will be hot, to cut through the booze. Drinkers who were traditionally poorly paid manual workers would come off shift, have a drink then six, spend most of their daily wages and go home to be obnoxious at home. Hence the bad reputation. The picture above shows tapioca, absolutely traditional, with chicken pepper fry and duck mappas, a milder curry. No cutlery, but we had access to a tap to wash our hands. We got through four 600ml bottles between four of us, working up a pleasant but definite beer buzz. Then home like schoolkids who'd just smoked a toke.

Sorry @TicTac I've been away a couple of days, still on holiday. I asked my mum. The squid is coated in "a little" chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder, salt and ground black pepper, then shallow fried in coconut oil. A neutral oil like sunflower would be fine. I think the secret, though, is in the freshness of the squid and the judgement about doneness. Apologies for stating the obvious.

There's a hypermarket at the mall. Huge choice of packed food goods as well as non-food items, but the choice is not exactly what you'd find in a supermarket in Britain-fair enough. The fresh produce is fantastic though. The fish looks and smells fresh Massive fish. I was just shooting pics as I passed through. I didn't take many pics of the large butchers section, but here's turkey, black chicken and duck. I think if you were in Cochin or Trivandrum and you felt you just had to cook, Lulu Mall would actually be a reasonable place to source your food conveniently, although certainly not the cheapest or most authentic option.

Went back to Lulu Mall TVM again. Different food stalls, very different results! Kutthu parotta with fried chicken and chicken curry sauce. The fried chicken, close up. Zoom in to see the roasted fennel seeds and curry leaves. Oh, this took me right back to my boarding school days-one of the few good things about those days! Indo-chinese chicken stuff with noodles. Yum yum. @liuzhou don't look!