Kerala Cuisine

Contemplating the true aspects of kerala culture, its cuisine has also been influenced by numerous its unique tradition. Kerala cuisine encompasses a stimulating combination of vegetables, meats and seafood flavored with a variety of spices and almost always cooked in coconut milk. Spices are used in Kerala to tone up the system and act as an aid to the digestion. The marvelous Kerala cuisine is simple yet palate tickling and distinctive. In general the cuisine is mildly flavored and gently cooked. Rice is the staple diet, fresh seafood, fragrant spices, coconuts; all are part of scrumptious curries. The pure vegetarian curries are gastronomical delights. Kerala cuisine is renowned for its unique spicy formulations and it's breakfast is adjudged as the 'best breakfast of the world'. A favorite breakfast dish is Puttu. Rice flour dough is layered with grated coconut and steamed in hollow bamboo cylinder.

Kerala has a well-developed vegetarian cuisine. You could try out the typical lunch served on a clean banana leaf, which is hygienic and easy to dispose. Kerala cuisine equally excel in non-vegetarian cuisine like `pathiri' and kozhi curry(chicken), biriyani and fish dishes. There are many restaurants serving sea-food - prawn curry in coconut gravy is exceptionally good. Curries are eaten usually with plain steamed rice.

Some of the popular food recipes of Kerala include:

Thorans: It is a fried gravy-less dishes of finely chopped par-boiled vegetables, meat or seafood. They are marinated with mixtures of coconut, chillies, some mild spices, onions and popped mustard seeds.

Avial: It is a mixed vegetable thick dish. A variety of vegetables are chopped and par-boiled then cooked in coconut milk.

Olen: It is a gravy dish of gourd and dry beans and again, coconut milk (a favorite ingredient of Malayalee cuisine).

Kaalan: It is thick gravy made of semi-ripe Kerala Bananas cooked in thick yogurt and seasoned with turmeric, chilly, cumin seeds and curry-leaves.

Pachadi: It is made of vegetables cooked in curds. It has a distinctive tangy taste.