cuisines

In Kerala rice is the main course of food and it the most essential ingredient of the daily diet.

Morning Meals

After coffee or tea in the morning, the breakfast items served consists of mainly idlis, prepared out of rice and black-gram, or dosa, made out of the same ingredients. Appams or periappams are also served. Another breakfast menu is Puttu made by steaming wet rice powder with a small helping of coconut.

Midday Meals

The midday meal consists of boiled rice. Parippu, sambar, pulisheri and rasam is served with it. There will be a range of vegetable curries accompanying the rice. These include Pachadi - a delicious dish, cooked out of raw mango, mixed with hot spices, Thoran - a coconut-based dry dish that is mixed with minutely chopped vegetables, herbs and curry leaves, and avail which is a mixture of a lot of vegetables cooked together. Pappads, or crunchy round flakes made of rice flour, chutneys and pickles are also served with the meals.

Wheat preparations are also very popular. Well-prepared chappathis, pooris, parattas and pathiris are made from refined flour, and served with vegetables and curries.

Diverse Use of Ingredients

The ingredients such as pepper, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, ginger, chillies, and mustard, are used freely in most curries. Most of the dishes in Kerala are cooked in coconut oil and are incomplete without the use of coconut in some form or the other. Curry leaves are added and are a must in most of the recipes.

Kerala Snacks

Kerala is equally famous for the homemade snacks which consists of a variety of banana chips, and rice flour cookies. There are usually served with evening coffee.

Sadya

Sadya is the typical Kerala feast served on a banana leaf. The feast consists of a spread of rice with more than 14 vegetable dishes.  Desserts are served midway through the meal. Payasam is a thick fluid dish of brown molasses, coconut milk and spices, garnished with cashew nuts and raisins. There can a couple of payasams, such as the lentil payasam and the jackfruit payasam, Bengal gram payasam etc. But 'Adapradhaman', which is a rich payasam with thin rice wafers, is the most popular. 'Palppayasam', made with sugar, ghee and spices, brewed in creamy white milk is regarded as the last word in sweet dishes. This is served with a golden yellow sweet pancake known as 'boli'.

Some of the favourite non-vegetarian dishes of Kerala can be listed as follows:

  1. Stewed Vegetables With Prawns
  2. Pork with Kaya (raw banana) Ularthiyathu
  3. Kerala Mutton Soup (for two portions)
  4. Dry Fish Curry
  5. Masala Fried Fish
  6. Meen Peera  (Fish)
  7. Aattirachi (Mutton) Ularthiyathu
  8. Chilli Garlic Prawns
  9. Kozhi Peralan  (Chicken)
  10. Naimeen Molee (Sear Fish)
  11. Duck Roast
  12. Nadan Kozhi Curry (Chicken)
  13. Malabar Chicken Biriyani
  14. Erachi Vada (Meat)
  15. Karimeen pollichathu (Fish)
  16. Malabari Chemmeen Soup (Fish)
  17. Beef Ularthiyathu
  18. Malabar Mutton Biriyani
  19. Finger Prawns
  20. Shredded Chicken on Crispy Rice Noodles
  21. Kappa (Tapioca) Biriyani
  22. Masala Grilled Pork
  23. Mutton Coconut fry
  24. Stuffed Chicken ‘Kerala style'
  25. Meen Pollichathu (Pomfret)
  26. Thalassery Kozhicurry (Chicken)
  27. Duck Mappas
  28. Masala Fried Prawns
  29. Malabar Lamb Curry
  30. Konchu Pollichathu (Prawns)
  31. Chicken a la Kiev (6 portions), Momos
  32. Prawns in country style
  33. Appam & Mutton Stew
  34. Meen Pathiri & Kozhi Varutharacha Curry (Steamed Rice Flour Pie With Fish & Chicken curry)
  35. Prawns Chilly Fry
  36. Grilled Tiger Prawns
  37. Meen Thavayil Pollichathu  (Fish  cooked on Thava)