Our favourite food in the world is Indian and we could not wait to learn the secrets of South Indian home cooking. So when Gigi let us visit her kitchen to make several Kerelan favourites we jumped at the chance.
Ever wondered what to do with a Coconut? Or how to make cabbage more interesting? Well these recipes which we learnt during our South Indian cooking lesson will certainly give you some inspiration.
The Coconut
Cocount is used in nearly all the following recipies so before we started to cook we prepared our coconut.
First the coconut was copped in half, the flesh removed and thinly sliced.
Grated Coconut
To make the grated coconut the flesh was put in a blender.
Coconut Milk
6 table spoons of grated coconut was reserved for later, the remaining was added to a sieve. We added enough water to wet the coconut and squeezed it by hand, releasing the milk into the cup below.
The process was repeated once more until we had a cup of fresh coconut milk.
Banana and Coconut Curry
This dish is fresh and sweet, you can replace the bannana for other sweet fruits such as pineapple. Its very quick and easy but tastes amazing.
Ingredients
- Banana – 2
- Coconut Milk – ½ cup
- Cumin Seed – ¼ tea spoon
- Mustard Seed – ¼ tea spoon
- Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon
- Dry red chili – 3
- Curry Leaves – a pinch
- Curd or Natural Yoghurt – 1 cup
- Coconut oil – 1 large spoon
- Salt – to taste
Method
1.Chop the Banana into small pieces.
2.Heat the coconut oil in a pan and add cumin seeds and mustard seeds until popping.
3.Add curry leaves and dried chilli to the pan
4. Add chopped banana or pineapple
5.Add the coconut milk and continue stiring to soften the fruit.
6. Add the curd (or fresh yogurt), salt and turmeric, and then lightly simmer for 2-3 minutes. (If you use pineapple instead cook for longer, approx. 10 min)
Green Mango and Fish Curry
This tradtional dish is a delight, the bitter mango goes well with the coconut. The fish and mango could easily be replaced to make your own version of this tropical curry.
Ingredients
- Fish – 1
- Coconut milk – 1 cup
- Coconut oil – 2 spoons
- Chilli powder – 1 spoon
- Onion – 2 small
- Turmeric powder – 1 spoon
- Garlic – 5 pieces
- Curry leaves – I pinch
- Green Mango – 1
- Salt – to taste
Method
1.Slice the onion, chilli and garlic
2.Peal the mango and cut into chunks
3.Heat the coconut oil in a pan
4.Add the onion, chilli, garlic and curry leaves
5.Add chilli powder and turmeric and lightly fry for a few minutes.
6.Add the mango, coconut milk and salt
7.Add the fish and simmer for 5 minutes on each side
Keralan Cabbage Thoran
This is one of my favourite South Indian dishes and quite possible the best cabbage dish in the world. It tastes just as nice with sliced coconut rather than grated.
Ingredients
- Vegetable (cabbage or cauliflower) – 250g
- Ginger – 1 small piece
- Garlic – 1 small piece
- Green Chilli – 1
- Curry leaves – a pinch
- Grated Coconut – 3 tea spoons
- Coconut oil – 1 big spoon
- Mustard seed – a pinch
- Cumin seed – a pinch
- Onion – 1 smalll
- Turmeric powder – ¼ tea spoon
- Salt – to taste
- Water – ½ cup
Method:
1.Finely slice the cabbage (or cauliflower), onion, garlic and ginger
2.Heat the coconut oil in a pan and add mustard and cumin seeds until popping.
3.Stir in cabbage, onion, garlic, ginger and curry leaves and fry.
4.Add in grated coconut, salt and water and stir.
5.Boil lightly for 2-3mins for cabbage or 8-10mins if using cauliflower
Coconut Rice
One of the best rice dishes in the world is coconut rice. Heres how its done in India.
Ingredients
- Cooked rice – 1 cup
- Grated coconut – 1 cup
- Curry leaves – 1 pinch
- Cardamom – 3
- Cinnamon – 2 sticks
- Cloves – 3
- Cumin seeds – 1 tea spoon
- Mustard seed – 1 tea spoon
- Coconut oil – 1 big spoon
- Dried red chilli – 3
- Salt – to taste
Method
- Heat coconut oil in a pan
- Add cumin and mustard seeds and fry until popping
- Add curry leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, cried chilli and cloves
4.Add pre-cooked rice, grated coconut and salt
5.Stir and heat in pan until warm.
Dhal Fry
This lentil dish is ate all over India and is easy to make.
Ingredients
- Lentils – 1 cup
- Ginger – 1 small piece
- Garlic – 4 pieces
- Green chilli – 2
- Onion – 1 small
- Tomato – 1
- Mustard seed – ½ tea spoon
- Cumin seed – ½ tea spoon
- Coconut oil – 1 big spoon
- Salt – to taste
- Water – 1 cup
- Turmeric powder – ¼ tea spoon
Method
1.Soak the lentils in water for 1 hour
2.Slice the tomato, onion, garlic, ginger and chilli
3.Heat the coconut oil in a pan
4.Add the mustard and cumin seeds untiil popping
5.Add the chopped tomato, onion, garlic, ginger and chilli
6.Add turmeric powder, lentils, salt and water
7.Boil for 1 hour, continuously adding water in a normal pan or cook for 10mins in a pressure cooker
Chappatis
Ingrediants
- Wholemeal flour
- Water
- Salt
Method
1. Mix the flour, water and salt into a ball. Split into indvidual pieces.
2. Spinkle a little flour on the workbench and using a rolling pin flatten each ball until thin
3. Cook on hot pan until the chappati starts to bubble then turn over and cook the other side.
The Feast
Once we had finished the cooking we were expected to eat this amazing feast between us both.
We could not eat it all but we gave it our best shot, the food was amazing and we will be trying these recipes at home, thats if we ever find a place to call home.
