BharatSangraha

Malabar · Western Coastal Strip

Foodways

The distinguishing kitchen here is the Mappila one, and what distinguishes it is the direction its ingredients came from. Fennel, cinnamon, clove, ghee, dried fruit, a short aromatic rice and the practice of finishing rice under sealed heat with coals on the lid all arrived by sea from the west, and settled onto a coconut and rice base that is otherwise Kerala's. Wheat is not an import here in the northern Indian sense — it arrives as pathiri, rolled from rice flour, and as parotta, laminated from refined flour, and both are everyday food rather than borrowed food. Pepper is a crop before it is a seasoning: it is what the ships came for, and it is used more sparingly in the kitchen than a visitor expects.

Primary cooking medium

Coconut oil, for everyday cooking and for fryingGhee, for festive rice, biryani and the Mappila sweetsCoconut milk graded thick to thin and added in sequence

Dominant sour agents

Kudampuli, smoke-dried, for fishTamarind, for meat and vegetablesRaw mango and bilimbiCurd, in the Wayanad and midland kitchensLime, squeezed into black tea as much as into food

Spice register

Fennel is the tell — perumjeerakam in the meat masala, whole in the biryani, and in the ground mix for pathiri fillings — with cinnamon, clove and cardamom behind it and shallot, garlic and ginger as the wet base. Dry red chilli is used for colour more than for heat. Against the Tulu coast to the north, which grinds roasted coconut into everything, and against central Kerala, which leads with black pepper and green chilli, Malabar leads with fennel and warm sweet spice.

Staple grains and carbs

Kaima (jeerakasala) — the short, round, aromatic rice used for biryani instead of basmatiGandhakasala — the scented Wayanad landrace, held under a geographical indicationMatta, the red parboiled everyday riceRice flour, for pathiri, ada and the steamed breakfast repertoireRefined wheat flour, for parottaKaipad rice, grown in tidal saline fields of the north and also under a geographical indication

Preservation methods

Unakka meen — anchovy, mackerel and sardine split, salted and sun-dried on the sandSmoke-dried kudampuli, hung over the hearthChakka varatti — jackfruit boiled down with jaggery to a keeping pasteNendran chips fried in coconut oil, which keeps them for weeksSalted raw mango and bilimbi in brine jarsPepper and coffee dried on the yard floor before the rain returns

Signature techniques

Sealed dum with coals above and below

Meat and rice are cooked separately, layered in a heavy vessel, sealed with dough or cloth, and finished with fire underneath and burning coals set on the lid so the heat comes from both directions. The rice takes the aroma of the meat without ever being cooked in its liquid — which is why a Thalassery biryani has distinct grains and a pale colour.

Also found in: Awadh, Deccan Plateau, Marava & Ramnad

Scalded rice-flour dough

Rice flour is cooked briefly in boiling salted water, kneaded while too hot to hold comfortably, and rolled thin. The scalding gelatinises the starch, which is the only thing that makes a flour with no gluten hold together as a sheet. Every pathiri in the repertoire — plain, filled, layered, fried — starts here.

Also found in: Kochi & Central Kerala

Parotta lamination

A soft refined-flour dough is rested, oiled, pulled until it is translucent, coiled into a spiral, rested again and then flattened and cooked on a griddle before being slapped between the hands so the coils separate into leaves. The slapping is not showmanship; without it the layers stay welded.

Also found in: Kongu Nadu, Tondaimandalam

Halwa reduction

Wheat or maida is soaked and washed to draw off the starch, which is then cooked with jaggery or sugar and an enormous quantity of coconut oil, stirred continuously for hours until the mass leaves the sides of the pan in one piece, and poured into trays to set. The technique came to Kozhikode with Gujarati traders and was rebuilt around coconut oil, which is why Kozhikode halwa is glossy and translucent rather than grainy.

Also found in: Kochi & Central Kerala, South Gujarat Littoral

Smoke-dried kudampuli

The rind of the Malabar tamarind is halved, salted and hung over the kitchen hearth for weeks until it is black and leathery. It keeps for a year, and it brings a smoke note into fish curry that fresh tamarind cannot. A fish curry souring agent that is also a preservative and a flavouring.

Also found in: Kochi & Central Kerala, Travancore & Kuttanad

Graded coconut milk

Grated coconut is pressed three times — the first thick, the second thinner, the third almost water — and the three are added in reverse order, thinnest first for the long cooking and thickest last off the heat. Boiling the first press splits it, so the sequence is a rule rather than a preference.

Also found in: Kochi & Central Kerala, Tulu Nadu

The foodway signature of Malabar — cooking medium, souring agents, spice register, staple grains and the techniques that define it. (6)