Malabar Cuisine: Food From Kerala in South India

Malabar is a northern region in south Indian state Kerala also known as the “Gods own country”. Malabar lies between Arabian Sea and Western Ghats.

Over the past few decades, Kerala has gained a significant position in the world’s spice market for availability of its wide varieties of spices with high quality. Although Kerala is well known for its abundant use of seafood, coconut and spices, apparently Malabar is often referred as the “spice garden of India”. 

Malabar is well known for attracting traders in prehistoric/ancient times. One of the major motivating factors for traders was the direct access to the wide range of commodities, especially varieties of spices and cotton fabrics. Due to the huge demand for spices for use in both food and medicines, Malabar coast has been a major exporter of spices for a few decades.

Malabar coast is the house of many essential Indian spices – black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, nutmeg. In ancient days, Malabar pepper was termed as the black gold as the Romans bought this spice paying the price of gold. This spice was so precious that Romans used it as currency and the term “as dear as pepper” was used to describe anything expensive. 

This cuisine is extremely diverse and heavily influenced by multiple cultures as this land was once occupied by Arab traders, France, Portuguese, British and Dutch rulers apart from the native Namboodiris. This cuisine does not use butter liberally like the Punjabi cuisine, nor the garlic, green and red chillies are extensively used like in the Rajasthani, Maharastrian and Kathiyawadi cuisines.

Coconut is the main ingredient in most of the dishes. Even Though the coconut lends creamy texture and rich flavour, the dishes are totally unique and not at all comparable to Awadhi dishes where the texture and rich flavours are infused by significant use of exotic spices. 

Popular Malabar vegetarian dishes: 

Puttu and Kadala curry: An extremely popular breakfast combination of this cuisine. Puttu is a steamed rice and coconut cake made in a cylindrical mould. It is served with a spiced black chickpea curry called Kadala curry. 

Appam: Fluffy pancakes made with  fermented rice and coconut batter.

Idiyappam: Steamed rice noodles made with rice flour dough. It is usually served with coconut milk and sugar or ishtu.

Vegetable Ishtu: A stew made with vegetables, curry leaves and coconut milk. It goes well with appam and idiyappam.

Avial: A thick vegetable based dish cooked in a spiced yogurt based gravy. Festival feast sadya is incomplete without avial. It is renowned as a popular south Indian dish in food joints across the world.

Thoran: Dry vegetable dish combined with coconut and curry leaves. It is an amazing accompaniment and pairs well with rice and curry. 

Aripathiri: Thin flatbread made with roasted rice flour. It pairs well with any curry. 

Parotta: Malabar parotta is a  layered flaky flatbread made with plain flour. It is one of the most loved street food in Kerala. 

Ney Choru: An aromatic mildly flavoured rice dish made with ghee, spices and dry fruits. The word ney choru literally translates to ghee rice (ney = ghee, choru = rice).

Kalathappam: A delicious dessert made of rice, jaggery, coconut oil, shallots and cardamom. 

Unnakaya: A popular sweet dish made of steamed bananas with coconut stuffing. It is great as a tea time snack or as a simple dessert after dinner.