Keralan/Malayali?

[brucesw]

I've been exploring the menu of a restaurant serving such dishes as Kappa Fish Curry, Beef Fry, Pork Fry and Fish Fry, Karimeen Fry, Duck Curry, Avial, Thoran, Palappam, Chammanthi, Chemmendi and of course Payasam. The menu just uses terms like Kerala spices or sauces or 'typical Kerala dish.'

What is the correct terminology for this cuisine: Keralan, Keralese, Keralite or just cuisine of Kerala? Is the term Malayali appropriate here or is that a term denoting a wider or narrower range of dishes?

[Jenni]

I am not from Kerala but I have visited several times and have a few friends from there too, so I will contribute my experience. Someone else may clarify at some stage...

A friend from Kerala once politely corrected me when I used Keralan to signify the origin of a person, but I do not think it is rude, just incorrect. A person from Kerala can be a Keralite or a Malayali (also spelt Malayalee). The latter links in with the language of Kerala, Malayalam, indicating that the person is a speaker of Malayalam. I think that when describing the food, the term Malayali is more correct, as in "a Malayali dish". "Cuisine of Kerala" is a good one to get out of saying "Keralan food"!

Incidentally, you will really enjoy the delicious food Kerala has to offer. I have spent several months in Kerala eating lots of delicious food and I never tire of it. But it is worth actually getting to Kerala to taste it - I have not yet found a decent restaurant for Malayali food in the UK at least.

ETA: By the way, you should definitely get this book for excellent information on traditional Hindu vegetarian food in Kerala. As well as fantastic and authentic recipes there is a wealth of historical and cultural information. The authors website is here. She posts on another forum I frequent, and actually I think she may have posted on egullet in the past, perhaps under the name peppertrail? She is a wonderful and very helpful lady.

Edited February 5, 2011 by Jenni (log)

[brucesw]

Thanks, Jenni. I have been enjoying it; it is quite different from the southern vegetarian foods I was into a couple of months ago; there isn't much on the menu that is vegetarian though there is some.

The restaurant is in Stafford, SW of Houston, and the town seems to be the epicenter of the expat community from Kerala. There is a caterer, Kerala Kitchen, a couple of grocers that feature foods from Kerala, an Indian Christian Church, and this place. Very nice fellows running it and very helpful but I worry that I bug them with too many questions!

It is apparently the only restaurant in the Houston area serving this kind of food and there appear to be very few in the US at all.

I was just curious as I came across the term Malayali in connection with the language, culture and people but never saw it used in connection with the cuisine per se.

That's a great looking site, thanks.

[Jenni]

Thanks, Jenni. I have been enjoying it; it is quite different from the southern vegetarian foods I was into a couple of months ago; there isn't much on the menu that is vegetarian though there is some.

The restaurant is in Stafford, SW of Houston, and the town seems to be the epicenter of the expat community from Kerala. There is a caterer, Kerala Kitchen, a couple of grocers that feature foods from Kerala, an Indian Christian Church, and this place. Very nice fellows running it and very helpful but I worry that I bug them with too many questions!

It is apparently the only restaurant in the Houston area serving this kind of food and there appear to be very few in the US at all.

I was just curious as I came across the term Malayali in connection with the language, culture and people but never saw it used in connection with the cuisine per se.

That's a great looking site, thanks.

Do you just mean there isn't a lot of vegetarian options on the menu of that particular restaurant? Because Kerala is rather well known for its vegetarian dishes, though not everyone is necessarily vegetarian as fish and meat are popular. Still it is very very easy to travel around Kerala eating only vegetarian dishes with no special effort. Most restaurants offering "meals ready" at lunch have a vegetarian meal as well as a fish or meat meal, and there are large numbers of pure vegetarian restaurants.

For the festival of Onam it is customary to serve a sadya (feast) that is traditionally entirely vegetarian (though I think some coastal places add a fish dish). Some of the must have dishes for this feast are very famous in Kerala - olan, kalaan, avial, pachadi, kichadi, upperi, thoran, errisery...I can go on! There are also certain Hindu communities in Kerala who are completely vegetarian (including no eggs).

Mind you, it sounds like there are a lot of Christian Keralites in your area, since there is a church. There is a sizeable Christian community in Kerala, including Syrian Christians, and they are well known for their meaty dishes of all kinds, including beef. Try and get yourself invited to a Christian wedding in Kerala - I went to the wedding of a friend in Kerala and the food was amazing. There is a particular dish called istew/ishtu (or also just stew) which has meat, potato coconut milk, chillies and a variety of aromatic spices. I was well catered for with a vegetarian version of this, but others were digging into the meaty version. Along with this there were delicious appams (rice pancakes which are spongy in the middle and thin on the edge) and idiyappam (little nests of fresh steamed rice noodles), and a variety of other dishes....oh my mouth is watering just thinking of it!

Other meatier cuisines include mopla cuisine, which is particular famous for its distinctive biriyani. Even so, mopla cuisine also has some vegetarian dishes. And of course, there is plenty of fish.

[brucesw]

Yes, just not a lot of vegetarian on this particular menu. I love the palappam, which is what they call the rice pancakes on this menu. I've had all the dishes listed in post # 1 except the fish fry and karimeen fry, which I'm going to try next. I went to a Sunday buffet and sampled most of the dishes then also tried the Kerala Thali with 9 katoris plus rice and papad and also had the Kappa Fish Curry.

I don't see the ishtu on the menu, unfortunately. They have added a cook/partner to do Northern Indian and Indian Chinese dishes since the former, particularly, is more well known. Business has apparently not been very good and they have dropped their breakfast hours. I hope I didn't discover them too late.

[Jenni]

^^^

Sounds like a great place, I hope they do well.

There are actually several different kind of appam, such as vellayappam/veallappam, idiyappam, neyappam. Common factor is that they are all delicious!

Maybe ishtu was just listed as stew, such as chicken or mutton stew?

[brucesw]

I passed by today and the parking lot was full for the buffet, might not have been an empty seat in the house so maybe there's no worry about them going out of business. Stafford is a small bedroom community and there's probably not that big a population around during the week during the day when I've been in and been the only diner or one of only two tables occupied.

They told me the palappam is made with rice flour, coconut and a little sugar. What's the difference in those others?

They had told me the former breakfast menu is available on special order but I see on the take-out menu that's a minimum order of 25 people so I won't be getting to sample their appam and egg curry, puttu and kadala curry, idli with sambar and chutney, etc. And I see they also have chicken stew and beef stew for special order breakfast.

Edited February 7, 2011 by brucesw (log)

[Jenni]

Disclaimer: I am no expert on this, I just enjoy cooking and eating. I was not born in Kerala, have never lived in Kerala and do not claim my limited knowledge to be infallible! I have tried to learn as I go along, but it is possible that I have been misinformed or have misunderstood.

Paalappam and vellappam are sometimes used interchangeably, and many people just refer to this as appam. Traditionally it was made of rice, coconut and palm toddy, and the toddy made it ferment and bubble up. These days yeast is used, though fermentation time is still allowed to get the right flavour. I've seen variations on this where the person making it has added a little urad dal, and I've seen one or two without coconut, but properly I believe the rice-coconut-yeast-sugar combo is correct and I do not know whether these variations should be called something else.

Idiyappam are little nests of rice noodles. Rice that has been soaked and ground or rice flour is cooked with water and a little sesame oil into a dough. This is then extruded through a special press into little "nests", and these are then steamed. Some people steam the dough first and then extrude.

Neyyappam are made from rice, sugar and cardamom. There's also a variation with banana in it, but I think it is called a different name. They are fried in ghee in a special pan with lots of little indentations in it, so they come out like little fried idli-shaped cakes. The pan looks a bit like a Æbleskiver or poffertjes pan.

There are other appams, and also appams are made in other places in South India and also Sri Lanka with different names.

By the way, in my opinion puttu-kadala is the best Kerala breakfast ever! See if you can persuade them to make it for you one day.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Jenni (log)

[brucesw]

You certainly know more than me and I'm just trying to learn, too, so I appreciate your sharing. There do not seem to be many of these restaurants in the US.

I first learned of this restaurant after I came across a mini-puttu maker on the housewares shelves of one of the grocers, New India. I had no idea what puttu was but once I looked it up I wanted to try it and began searching for mentions of it on local review sites and message boards and came across this restaurant just a few blocks away. So I was really disappointed when I found they don't serve it.

I was browsing the other grocery store yesterday, Discount Grocers, and saw frozen puttu in the freezer section. I was tempted. I wonder if it would be any good? It was a pinkish color but I can't remember what the ingredients listed that might have accounted for that. I was examining a lot of stuff and reading a lot of ingredient lists! They also had the puttu flour but I don't know what I'd use to steam it in. I'm sure New India had the flour and they also had the coconut shells sometimes used.

Perhaps I could try the frozen puttu and make the kadala curry myself. I've looked at several recipes online and it doesn't look too hard and I'm sure I could find all the ingredients.

[Jenni]

Hmm, not sure the frozen puttu would be good! Puttu has a specific texture that you get from mixing the flour with just enough water to moisten it, not actually make it into a dough. When this is steamed in the puttu maker it adheres more together. When serving it, you break it up and mix with the kadala. Somehow I feel the delicacy of the texture would be lost in the process of freezing.

The red comes from the red rice that it is made from. There is also a white puttu made from white rice. The red puttu is my favourite. Personally I think you should try making it yourself from the red flour, it is not too hard. Do you have a coconut scraper? Fresh coconut makes all the difference.

Serve it with steamed plaintains for extra yum factor!

[brucesw]

Hmm, not sure the frozen puttu would be good! Puttu has a specific texture that you get from mixing the flour with just enough water to moisten it, not actually make it into a dough. When this is steamed in the puttu maker it adheres more together. When serving it, you break it up and mix with the kadala. Somehow I feel the delicacy of the texture would be lost in the process of freezing.

That was my concern. Never had one but from what I know of how they're made it doesn't seem like a product that would do well frozen and reheated. Likewise the frozen palappam that I saw.

[patrickamory]

I've been making some dishes from Curried Favors with good results. The spinach pachadi is absolutely delicious. What is the name for the garnish of curry leaves, dried red chile and mustard seeds fried in oil that is added at the end of many Keraland dishes?

I also made shrimp thial using chicken thighs - a fantastic coconut-y, onion-y, sour stew. Highly recommended. (Kaimal doesn't specify it, but I was wondering whether an original Keralan recipe might call for kodampoli in the shrimp dish rather than tamarind.)

[Jenni]

What is the name for the garnish of curry leaves, dried red chile and mustard seeds fried in oil that is added at the end of many Keraland dishes?

Not sure of the name in Malayalam but this technique is called tadka, chaunk, vaghar, baghar and popu in other Indian languages. In English it is sometimes called tempering. In South India, you will notice that dals (urad and channa) are used, and give a wonderful nutty flavour and texture.

[patrickamory]

Tadka! That was the word I was looking for. Thank you!

Wikipedia has it listed under chaunk.

[Jenni]

^^^

They are the same thing, just different languages. Btw, you should definitely share some pictures of the dishes you have been making.

[patrickamory]

Thanks Jenni. I've just realized that you've answered some questions from the Regional Indian thread over here.

Below is a photo of a spinach pachadi I made from the Kaimal book, right after adding the tadka and before serving.