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 From the house where I grew up, there is a mosque just 200 feet away from my home……and in less than 100 feet from there is a temple……and within the next half a kilometer , there is one more temple and a church. Whether it is in a straight line or in a triangle, this co-existence of different religious institutions is something you can find uniformly throughout Kerala and this attitude of tolerance and cohesiveness is reflected in the celebration of festivals as well. Onam or X’mas or Eid, Keralites across the state celebrate the festival season with the same fervor and gaiety. We embrace the non-religious aspects of any festival season and make it a reason and season for celebration. Non- X’ians may not follow the month long advent and the mid-night mass, but right from writing out season’s greetings to hanging paper lanterns to Santa’s visit to each home, in the company of carol groups are part of generally everyone’s X’mas celebration and part of my memory too. One may not make a grand feast at home yet he /she is part of feast at their friends’ houses…….everyone gets to enjoy atleast a piece of cake and a small glass of wine………and for the same reason, before and after marriage, X’mas holds a special place in my heart. So this year, I thought I will draft out a menu-chart for the readers of this blog to help you create your own traditional Kerala X’mas menu to prepare the grand feast.As in any other celebration, food is the central part and mainly because of the month-long advent followed till the eve of X’mas, the feast usually is a gastronomic extravaganza and based on my personal experience, it is generally a non-veg affair. But the trademark of the season is fruit cake and sweet wine. Guests are usually treated with a piece of fruit cake and wine and here’s the list of my choices for you:
   
Breakfast:
X’mas day breakfast is something everyone looks forward to and for many like us, it’s always Paalappam with a stew of your choice:
    
Lunch: Lunch is a grand feast with a table full of delicious array of food and you could make it a course menu. Hope the choices below will help you make up your mind on what to cook:
I - course
   
II - course
   
III - course
If you are having new guests for lunch, you may repeat the course of Paalappam or bread with stewed meat or seafood.
  
IV - course
      
V - course (Rice & curries)
 with
Non-Veg:
             
Veg:
      
Pickles & Condiments
   
VI - course
I personally prefer to keep a dessert menu with a combination of something fancy and traditional.
        
Tea Time Snacks
      
Supper
By the end of the day , you re probably stuffed up till your neck and will be mostly in a mood to have something light and the best option is to go for a bowl of….
  
I hope the menu options come handy for atleast a bunch of confused minds out there! There are many other dishes too that are part of the feast; this list is purely based on the recipes I have featured till now.
And my dear Non-Keralite friends, please don't be confused that we eat all the above mentioned dishes in one single feast, these are just a list of choices for you to mix and match and create our traditional X'mas feast :)
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No part of the content ( articles, photographs, recipes) of this blog may be reproduced without my written permission.Copyright © 2007-2010 Kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.
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 ‘Tis the season…..of high festive spirits and to be merry……..that time of the year when I long to be part of my family and friends……that time of the year when I yearn to get drenched in the holidays spirits of the land where I grew up………the sights, the sound and the smell of those familiar streets of childhood and adolescence came flashing intermittently like comforting bout of hiccups…..and so did the thought of those traditional Christmas goodies from my homeland…….the tray of goodies Pauly aunty gifted every year to my grandma , lined with Achappam/Rose cookies, Kuzhalappam/Crisy Rice curls, Diamond cuts, Vattayappam/Steamed cakes, Plum Cake and those melt-in the mouth-puddings …….. the thought of getting this year’s X’mas treats ready for our friends took me back to those wonderful days……Of the many fondest memories associated with the taste, sound and smell of my grandmother's kitchen, there is this beautiful image that always floats on top of my sea of memories......a picture of my mother and aunt sitting on the floor and kneading some dough and then rolling out on a small high table- chopping board and cutting them into diamond shapes......Pauly aunty’s daughter was also there to help them with some tips……the air around them was one of gaiety and happiness…….Like a sponge absorbing water, I sat there soaking in the spirits of cheerfulness and laughter with a tinge of curiosity in my eyes……and on the other end, my grandma fried those diamond cuts and drained ‘em on a palm tray, Muram, lined with paper and then rolled them in sugar syrup ... I vividly remember running to my grandma's dining room every now and then and opening her built-in-cupboard in search of those fried goodies......they were irresistible; till then I had never tasted something like that and I just couldn’t control myself from nibbling them...As much I have adapted myself to the holiday spirits and tasty traditions of my temporarily adopted foster home, the more I stay away from my homeland, the more the yearning to go back to my roots and the desire to recreate the tastes of home. So this year as I heated the oven to bake cakes and cookies, I turned on the stove to fry up some crispy treats part of the Christmas traditions of Kerala. I made those diamond cuts, fried dough shaped into small diamonds, infused with the fragrance of cardamom and drenched with sweetness of sugar syrup. At my paternal home, according to my cousin, this snack is called as "Vettipori" or just "cuts".
Ingredients for Diamond Cuts:
- 2 cups All-purpose flour/Maida,sifted
- 2 1/2 tbsp beaten egg
- A generous pinch of salt
- Water to knead the dough (Little more than 1/2 cup)
- Seeds from 2 cardamoms, crushed
- Oil for deep frying
Sugar Syrup *
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 tsp water
- Seeds of 1 cardamom crushed
Directions:
- Mix all purpose flour, egg and salt; add water in small quantities and knead well until you get soft dough with smooth even surface. When the dough is almost coming together, sprinkle crushed cardamom. Once the dough is ready, cover it with a damp cloth and leave it on the kitchen counter for 15 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 4-5 balls and take one for rolling and let others remain under the damp cloth. Roll out the dough into thin rounds. Run your knife diagonally from left first and then cut diagonally from right , on the rolled out dough, to create diamond cuts/shapes.
- Heat oil and in low-medium heat, deep fry till the diamonds puffs up and edges begin to turn golden; remove and strain it on a paper towel.
- For making sugar syrup, heat sugar and water and let it boil and thicken to a consistency that will help coat the fried diamond cuts. You may drop some syrup on an aluminum sheet to see if it hardens. Keep swirling the pan occasionally while making syrup and you should not let the sugar syrup crystallize; just before coating the fried cuts, add the crushed cardamom to the syrup and coat the diamond cuts thoroughly in the syrup and then let them dry on a cookie sheet, lined with aluminum foil.
Note:* The quantity suggested for making syrup is only for a small batch of fried cuts. It is better to handle in small quantities as getting the right consistency of sugar syrup is a tricky affair, especially if you don’t have prior experience. I had to make a couple batches to get the right consistency and I still haven't mastered the art.
The alternative method for coating the diamond cuts with sugar syrup is to dust the fried cuts with confectioner’s sugar, infused with powdered cardamom. But let me state it clearly that dusting confectioner’s sugar is not an ideal substitute for coating with syrup as there is a world of difference in taste .
I’m sending a batch of this to Italian cookie lady, Susan who is releasing her II Season of EAT CHRISTMAS COOKIES.
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No part of the content ( articles, photographs, recipes) of this blog may be reproduced without my written permission.Copyright © 2007-2010 Kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.
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Neighbour's plate envy is a syndrome most of us go through occasionally on our restaurant visits....but do you really get hungry or smack your lips when you see someone relishing a piece of food?? I do! Only two people can make me smack my lips.....one is a wage worker named Chothi whom my father appointed every year at the end of monsoons to remove weeds and clean up the yard. As a child, I had some strange pleasure and enjoyment in watching Chothi eat his lunch from the banana leaf.....my mother served mounts of rice and then poured ladles of Sambar on top of rice and the way in which he mixed rice and lentils and vegetables to a huge round mass and the popping action into his mouth made me immediately run to my mother and ask for a plate of rice and sambar, something which was not all that exciting otheriwse!! He stimulated my craving department each time without even realizing what he 'd been doing to a small child. The second person who can make me hungry and smack my lips is my father........someone who relishes each and every morsel he puts in his mouth and he got lucky the day he married my mother who always made sure that she served his favourite dishes all the time. It could be a plate of humble Puttu drizzled with golden ghee and sprinkled with some sugar or a bowl of grainy avalose-podi mashed with ripe banana and sugar or a plate of his favourite fish, Karimeen/Pearlspot stewed in spicy coconut milk sauce...........the way he relished his food was always tempting to me......the way he took a small fistful of rice and dipped the same carefully into the fish curry served on a side plate made me drool ....I would be eating the same food sitting right across him but I just didn't seem to get the taste or the sensation he was experiencing........Seeing him holding that small side plate in both his hands and the way he slurped the spicy coconut milk sauce from it made me feel miserable and I started copying whatever he did to experience the same taste sensation he was enjoying ......that was the turning point for the foodie in me.......... that's when I started distinguishing the taste and flavour of fish cooked in coconut milk sauce.......thats when I experienced the taste of fleshy Karimeen fried in flavourful coconut oil ........and soon, like my father, I fell in love with Karimeen/Pearlspot, a variety of fish my mother bought irrespective of its price.Seeing our family love for Karimeen, CJJ once made a casual remark about a preparation his mother used to mention....Karimeen Pappas, a preparation from Kuttanadu, from the backwaters of Kerala. Till then, I had not even heard of such a name and it was naturally intriguing. Considering the fact that Karimeen was a delicacy that was not spotted in the Indian stores in our vicinity, I did not bother to learn much about this dish. But quite surprisingly, on one of our road trips to Chicago, we got a packet of frozen Karimeen exported from Kerala , from an Indian store and I grabbed the packet the moment I saw it. I re-created all my favourite Karimeen preparations from my mother's kitchen and finally I was left with just one fish and that's when I remembered this particular preparation CJJ mentioned long back. So on one of our recent telecons with CJJ's grandma, my Kuttandan culinary Queen, I enquired her about Karimeen Pappas after discussing everything from family stuff to Condoleezza Rice's recent India visit and the current job loss problems!! Grandma painted a rough picture of this preparation and with a couple more inputs from her daughter, that is my mother -in-law, I ventured to cook up a dish I had not even seen or tasted till that day and I ended up with one of the tastiest Karimeen preparations I have enjoyed. I don't know if this is how it is supposed to look like as at this point, I do not have the option of sharing this picture with my in-laws to get approval but this is my interpretation of their words, of their explanation of this country-style dish.
Ingredients:
- 1 medium size whole Karimeen/Pearlspot (scales, guts and gills removed and cleaned thoroughly)
- 1tsp red chilly powder
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
- Salt to taste
- 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Oil for pan-frying (around 4tbsp)
For Gravy:
- A handful of thinly sliced red big onion
- 1 tbsp ginger , thinly sliced
- 6-9 Indian green chillies, cut lengthwise ( adjust as per your taste)
- 1 sprig of curry leaves
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- ¼ to ½ tsp coriander powder
- ¼ to ½ tsp powdered fennel seeds/Perinjeerakam
- 3 thinly sliced rounds of tomato (half of a small tomato)
- 1 cup coconut milk, with medium consistency (neither thin nor thick)*
- 2-3 drops of vinegar ** ( like eye drops)
- 2 ½ tbsp coconut oil
Directions:
- Make 3-4 slits on both the sides of cleaned Karimeen/Pearlspot to let the fish absorb the spices of marinade.
- Make a marinade with chilly powder, pepper powder, turmeric, salt and lemon juice and smear it well on both the sides of fish and leave it on the kitchen counter for 45 minutes.
- Heat oil in a shallow pan and when oil is hot, place Karimeen/Pearlspot gently and shallow fry at low-medium heat, by flipping each side, when it is done. It takes me about 4 minutes for each side for this particular fish.
- In a 'curry-chatti'/earthenware or any cooking pan, heat coconut oil and swirl the cooking vessel to coat the entire cooking area of pan. Tear off curry leaves and add to the hot oil and with a spatula, smear the cooking vessel again with the coconut oil infused with curry leaves. DO NOT skip this technique as it does add a lot of flavour while cooking, especially if you re using a curry-chatti. Now add thinly sliced onion and let it cook till soft; then add thinly sliced ginger and green chillies and cook till everything is soft and transparent. Sprinkle turmeric powder followed by coriander powder and powdered fennel seeds and stir for 30-40 seconds. Now place the thinly sliced tomato rounds on this onion base as a bed for fish and keep the lid and cook for a minute. Now take off the lid and place the fried fish gently and pour coconut milk and, keep the lid back and bring to a boil in medium heat. When it starts to boil, add salt, swirl the pan gently and let it simmer for another 5 minutes, in low heat. Do a taste-test, adjust salt if required and turn off the stove if gravy has blended well with fish and spices and finish off the cooking with a dash of 2-3 small drops of vinegar. Let it rest for minimum 40-60 minutes before serving. It helps fish to marry the sauce and balance the flavours.
- Serve with Paalappam, white bread, chappathi, Idiappam or rice
Notes:
*For the coconut milk part, you may extract Thanipaal/thick coconut milk first, then extract Randaampaal/thin coconut milk and instead of adding medium consistency milk, you may add Randaampaal/thin coconut milk first and bring to a boil and then add Thanipaal/thick coconut milk. But here in this dish, since we re not cooking the fish longer, as it is already pan-fried, it is ok to pour medium consistency coconut milk once and stop with that.
**Grandma suggested using either tomato or vinegar for sourness . I added both in small quantities as we prefer the combined taste of tomato and vinegar but pls make sure it is just SMALL drops of vinegar (like eye -drops). You may also use raw green mango slice in place of tomato and vinegar.
Grandma also suggested adding a pinch or two of red chilly powder along with ground fennel and coriander but I stayed away from using it as I already used enough chilly powder to fry the fish and balanced the heat with more green chillies; but addition of a small amount of chilly powder sure gives a subtle yet attractive shade to this curry.
Verdict: With hands gently moving around his bloated tummy, I heard CJJ murmuring in the background, "ennatha nalla bhakshanam-aayirunnu…" meaning " that was good food ..." :) I think the word 'delicacy' is ideal for this dish. The lingering taste was that of the creaminess of coconut milk perfumed with the sweetened scents of fennel and an undertone of black pepper from the fried fish pairing beautifully with the mild heat from green chillies………all these flavours are spruced up with the a very subtle hint of acidity and sourness from tomato and vinegar………we re sad we don't have a single piece of Karimeen/Pearlspot left in the freezer to make this dish again….Hope we get lucky soon!!
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No part of the content ( articles, photographs, recipes) of this blog may be reproduced without my written permission.Copyright © 2007-2010 Kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.
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 Need your help….My mother got some ‘Nellikka Puli’ and she would like to find out a method to cook this other than pickling and brining…….I don’t know the botanical name or other regional names of the same. From my recollection, it looks like green pearls clustered in a tamarind tree and it resembles a small gooseberry/Nellikka to an extent and I guess that’s why it is referred as ‘Nellikka Puli’. Sorry for the picture quality as it was taken with a mobile camera. Click on the picture to get an enlarged view.
Please take a moment and drop a line if you could throw some light into its botanical as well as regional names and a method to cook this other than pickling and brining. Your tips and help is much appreciated.
Thank You!
Shn
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No part of the content ( articles, photographs, recipes) of this blog may be reproduced without my written permission.Copyright © 2007-2010 Kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.
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"How come we don't make this often?!" , wondered CJJ when I served him some Kerala style fried chicken last week. I had a deep sense of satisfaction and pleasure hearing his response but it is a fact that I don't make Chicken Fry very often considering the amount of oil consumed in the whole process, even though I follow a pan-fry method. Back home, it is a deep fried goodness and simply delicious especially when it's fried in a Cheenachatti /wok, with a 'pond' of coconut oil infused with some aromatic curry leaves. Unlike the health conscious ones like me who carefully squeeze out drops of oil from that tiny blue Parachute bottle, men and women in charge of kitchens there, right from homes to the quintessential Thattukada/ road side eatery, easily pour out coconut oil from a big white plastic canister, locally known as Kannaas, which is generally used for buying everything from petrol to toddy to kerosene and the oil flows out as though you just opened a water tap !! My mother kicks it up a notch by dressing up the fried chicken with some caramelized onions spiced up with the same aromatic and flavourful spice and herb mix used for marinating the chicken pieces earlier. So last week when I was planning to make this dish, I thought of blogging about it too and rang up my mother to get her recipe exactly and the conversation went something like this :
Me: Mummy.....just tell me the recipe for your chicken fry...one more timeMother: oh...it's the same one I have given you earlier....you made it so many times after that...!Me: Yeah...I know ....but I wanted to be very sure this time.....planning to blog about it, so don’t want to miss any ingredients or deviate from your original recipe.....Mother: Ok....start with mixing chilly powder, turmeric, ginger, garlic........... (She explains the recipe in detail)Me: ok...thanx..Mother: Aahh..if you re planning to blog this, then it is better to use chicken legs.....that will look good in the pictureMe: WOW! I didn't think about that ...sounds great.........and this morning while calling home, I showed them the photograph I clicked last week and was waiting eagerly to hear her response as somehow I was pretty impressed with the shot and the conversation followed was like this:Mother: .........uh.....mm....it looks Okay......( Well, her 'ok' means 'not satisfied' , so I asked her directly)Me: What happened....you didn' t like it...? Isn't it how it is supposed to be??Mother: (with her voice down a bit) .....uhh....you shouldn't have kept those pieces together.....you should have lined it on a plate...Me: Mummy, it's difficult to photograph that way....I couldn't manage to get a good angle Mother: .....and why isn't the meat browned evenly? Me: ohh...thats 'coz I used a shallow pan....I dont have a small wok...also I dont like it too crispyMother: ....atleast you should have put those onions on top of the chicken instead of layering it at the bottom.....Me: (beginning to lose patience here ) .......I layered it that way 'coz otherwise the readers wont be able to see the meat....they will just get to see some onions alone....Mother: still, I feel you shouldn't have clustered the chicken legs like that....Me: (I am speechless and sad...... my creativity, my culinary skills, everything is questioned here and then I hear my brother's voice in the background)Brother: In my personal opinion.....frankly and honestly speaking, it doesn't look 'perfect'.........the onions kinda gives a gravy like image instead of a dry fried chicken one ( trying to sound politically correct here )Me: You know, had I pictured with onions on top, nobody will be able to see what's lying underneath that.....then there's no point in using chicken legs.....Brother: This is just my personal opinion.....just telling you what I felt.....Me: (Speehless......defenseless.... )Well, I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts that my two best ( or worst?) critics are CJJ, the mastermind behind this blog and my mother, the main contributor of 90% of the recipes I have featured here . Till this conversation I was under the impression that I have a significant role to play in this blog , even if it is one of a Content Developer who gives flesh and blood to the body and keeps it alive and make everything look and sound appealing .........but with this particular conversation , it was quite clear that I have been demoted to the level of a glorified clerk or assistant who has failed to carry out her job decently!!! :-DWhether the fried pieces does not look the way it is supposed to be or the picture sends out a wrong message or not, this is a lip-smacking dish my mother prepares and here I am sharing her recipe with you all:
Ingredients:
For Frying:
- 4-5 chicken drumsticks/leg of chicken ( You can use any piece of chicken weighing about 400-500 gm)
- 1 tbsp chilly powder (adjust to your taste and tolerance)
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- Around ½ tsp homemade masala powder/garam masala
- Around ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper powder
- ¾ tsp fresh ginger paste
- ½ to ¾ tsp fresh garlic paste
- 1 ½ tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- Around 1/4 cup oil for pan-frying
- 1 sprig of curry leaves
For Sautéing:
- 1 red big onion, thinly sliced
- 2 Indian green chillies cut lengthwise
- 1 sprig of curry leaves
- Leftover marinade used for chicken
- Salt, if required
For Serving:
Directions:
- Wash chicken drumsticks thoroughly and make 2-3 slits on it and pat dry the pieces with a paper towel. If you are using medium size cubed pieces of chicken, there is no need to make slits on the meat.
- Make a marinade with chilly powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, ground pepper powder, ginger and garlic paste, salt and lemon juice and apply it on the meat thoroughly and let it rest for minimum 2 hours either on the kitchen counter or refrigerator.
- Heat oil in a small wok or pan: tear off curry leaves and fry them in oil for 2-3 seconds and remove with a slotted spoon and keep it aside for final garnishing. This helps to add one more level of flavour to coconut oil. Place the chicken pieces gently in oil and fry each side for 2-3 minutes, in low-medium heat, until it is done. (Note: Cooking time varies depending on the thickness of the meat and temperature too) Remove the fried pieces using a slotted spoon and keep it aside in a plate.
- Now to the same oil, add thinly sliced onions and green chillies and cook till it starts to brown. At this stage add the leftover marinade and curry leaves and mix well with the onion and stir until it loses the raw smell, for about a minute and add salt if required. Now put all the fried chicken back to the wok/pan; mix everything well, and pile up all the masala on the fried chicken pieces and keep the lid and let it cook , in warm-low flame, for a minute or two or and turn off the stove.
- Garnish with the fried curry leaves , kept aside earlier and serve with lemon or lime wedges.
Tips: For even browning of the meat, it is better to use a wok or any pan that has a depression in the center. For health conscious lot, you may broil the chicken in oven until it is cooked well and follow the recipe for sautéing and blend the fried meat to the onion base. The sweetness from the caramelized onions and spices from the marinade gives additional richness and taste to fried chicken.
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No part of the content ( articles, photographs, recipes) of this blog may be reproduced without my written permission.Copyright © 2007-2010 Kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2007-2010
Kitchenmishmash.blogspot.com. All rights reserved. 
