Zucchini Thoran (Kerala Style Zucchini stir fry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 

Day 25: Z for Zucchini Thoran

It is the last and final day of this month's mega marathon and time sure flew right by. For letter Z, I knew I had to make something with Zucchini, but it took me a while to finalize on what to make.

After discussing with Rajani about the possible zucchini dishes to make, I finally made this zucchini thoran from Kitchen Mishmash. Thoran is a very simple and basic Kerala dry curry that can be made with just about any fresh vegetable. I make cabbage thoran quite often, so I tried making zucchini thoran this time.

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Yam Fry (Kerala Chena Mezhukkupuratty)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 

Day 25: Y for Yam fry
Today's letter was probably the easiest to decide. Y for Yam curry, that's it -- I didn't even bother to look for more options. I love yam and always have a few frozen packets in the freezer.

There are quite a few different versions of yam fry online. Some were deep fried while some recipes needed marination, some had onion while some didn't. I settled on Maria's recipe with onion and garlic.

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Xmas Fruit Cake (Kerala Christmas Fruit Cake)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 
Day 24: X for Xmas Fruit Cake

So here we are at probably the most difficult letter of all, X. There are very few dishes or veggies that start with the letter X, so this must have been a tough letter for everyone except for those cooking from Spanish or Chinese cuisines. I was initially planning to go with an adjective or a verb but finally ended up making this Kerala Style X mas Cake.

I was thinking of doing a post like xplore Malabar cuisine, xperience Kerala sadya or something on those lines. I even asked Rajani for her input and she said try a sadya meal by making dishes over couple of days. I was tempted but the amount of work involved seemed too tedious and with the husband traveling, it was way too much food for just me. It is one of my dream meal to make in my lifetime.

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Wheat Payasam (Kerala Style)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 
Day 23: W for Wheat Payasam

I went straight to Rajani's blog for today's letter. She did an A-Z Kerala Sadya recipes for one of the previous mega marathons and I knew she will have the perfect dish with the letter W. Rajani didn't disappoint me, this Wheat payasam, Kerala style with coconut milk was so decadent and delicious.

This payasam is made with cracked wheat or broken wheat, sweetened with jaggery and simmered in coconut milk. I used fine bulgur wheat and it worked just perfect for this recipe.

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Vellarikka Curry (Kerala style Cucumber Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 
Day 22: V for Vellarikka Curry

There were quite a few options for the letter V in Malayalam. Raw banana (vazhakai), eggplant (vazhuthananga), okra (vendakai) and garlic (velluthulli). I finally ended up picking Vellarikka or cucumber.

This Kerala cucumber curry is a simple side dish made with ground coconut and yogurt sauce. With all these coconut based Kerala dishes I probably ate more coconut in a week than I normally would in a month. I'm not complaining though, it's just that we don't use this much coconut in our everyday cooking. On another note, adding coconut to diet has many health benefits like improving heart health, improves digestion, quick energy boost and so on.

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Ulli Theeyal (Kerala Onion Masala Curry)

BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines 

Week 4: Kerala Cuisine 

Day 21: U for Ulli Theeyal

We are starting the final week of 'Journey through the Cuisines' mega marathon and I'm visiting beautiful Kerala -- God's own country this week. My plan for the marathon was to pick a state from each corner of the country -- so I started from the west with Bengali cuisine, then moved north to Rajasthan and then east to Gujarat. Finally this week I'm in deep south in Kerala.

Initially I wanted to do Tamil cuisine and even made 2 dishes, but somehow I wasn't happy with my choice of dishes, so I changed it to Kerala at the very last minute.

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Ela Ada

Buffet on Table: Week 2 -- Indian States

Day 11: Kerala -- Ela Ada

For the final day of this week's mega marathon, I have a sweet dish from Kerala. Coconut-jaggery stuffing inside a rice flour crepe, then steamed until done. These are perfect to make for festivals and special occasions.

With sravana maasam in full swing, I had way too many fresh coconuts to take care of. So I used some of it to make this simply delicious dessert.

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Kerala Vegetable Biryani (Vegetarian Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# 48: Week 3/ Day 1

Theme: Biryani of different Styles

Dish: Kerala Vegetable Biryani

The theme for this week's blogging marathon is one of my favorite. My love for biryanis has made me try quite a few different varieties already. So when Valli had Biryani of different styles as one of the themes for this month's marathon, I knew this was my chance to try 3 more delicious biryanis and add them to my repertoire.

This Kerala Vegetable Biryani from Veg Recipes of India has been on my to-make list for quite a while now. This is a layered rice dish with basmati rice and spicy vegetable curry cooked in coconut milk.

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Kerala Egg Curry

This is a tasty egg curry cooked with spices in Kerala style to serve along with Appams. Everyone in my household loves eggs and I'm always looking for different egg curries and this one was like by everyone.

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Kerala -- Appam with Vegetable Stew

Blogging Marathon# 39 - Indian States: Day 14
State: Kerala
Dish: Appam with Kerala Stew

From Karnataka, we are going a little south to the beautiful state of Kerala. Kerala is known as God's Own Country because of the beautiful beaches, backwaters, mountain ranges and breathtaking scenic views. It is one of the fastest growing tourist destination in the world.
Kerala is the first state in India to be recognized as a completely literate state. Kerala has a large number of Hindu temples and the temples have unique traditions. We visited some of the temples and hill stations when we visited Kerala years ago; some places I still remember are Cochin, Guruvayur, Trivandrum, Kottayam falls.

Cuisine: Kerala cuisine has both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Many spices like pepper, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon are cultivated in Kerala and they find a very special place in their cuisine making it richly spicy and special. Coconuts grow in abundance in Kerala and consequently all forms of coconut is widely used in Kerala dishes. Because of the long coastline, numerous rivers and backwater networks, Kerala cuisine has a lot of sea food based dishes.
Sadya is the most famous main course food of Kerala. It is a vegetarian festive meal served on a banana leaf. Sadya is served for occasions like weddings, house-warming ceremony, for birthdays and for regional festivals and most importantly for Onam.
Staple Food: Rice and Cassava.
Specialties: Malabar Biryani, Aviyal, Thoran, Puliserry, Olan, Mooru, Upperi and so on.

Today's Dish: I have tried a few dishes from Kerala in the past. Making Kerala appam has been on my to-make list for a very long time. So I finally decided to make it for this marathon. It is made with ground rice that is fermented and resulting appams are fluffy and soft. They are served with Kerala stew, chana masala or other gravy side dishes and with sweetened coconut milk.

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Chili Parotta/ Kothu Parotta

Blogging Marathon# 36: Week 4/ Day 3
Theme: Online Bookmarked Recipes
Dish: Chili Parotta

The first time I tasted Chili Parotta was about 4~5 years ago in Saravana bhavan in Edison, NJ. Both my husband and I didn't really like it. It was way too greasy and heavy on the stomach. So that ended my chili parotta eating experience on a bad note.
Recently I saw this recipe on Sandhya's blog and it looked so much tastier than what I remember chilli parotta to be. I bookmarked it right away.

My husband bought a packet of frozen 'Kawan Paratha' instead of regular wholewheat rotis that I usually buy. So I knew I had to make the chilli parotta with them and was waiting for an occasion to make it. Which came the other day when we needed a quick dinner after whole day of shopping. If you time, then you can also make your own Kerala Parottas.

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Unniyappam/ Unni appam (Kerala Style Banana Pancakes)

Blogging Marathon# 35: Week 2/ Day 3
Theme: Regional Dishes - Course Specific
Dish: Snack --- Unniyappam/ Unni Appam

For Day 3 of BM# 35, I wanted to try any authentic breakfast dish from Kerala. After looking through the google search results for Kerala Breakfast recipes, Appam looked very traditional and authentic. But after seeing a couple of you tube videos, I decided it's not time for me to make appam. We are currently experiencing bitter cold temperatures and I'm sure the appam batter is not going to ferment to make soft & fluffy appams. So I went back looking for other options to make.
Then I came across these Unniyappams/ Unni appams. Saw a youtube video and the recipe looked simple enough to make. I already have a few bananas riping away, so thought this is a good use for those too.

Unniyapam is a traditional Kerala sweet that is offered as prasad in temples and is also served as snack. These can be made by soaking and grinding raw rice, but lazy that I am I found a recipe that uses rice flour instead. I also used much less oil than showed in the you tube video. I skipped the traditionally used coconut bits because my son is not a fan of coconut.

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Kerala Parotta & Mixed Vegetable Curry

Blogging Marathon# 35: Day 2/ Week 2
Theme: Regional Dishes - Course Specific
Dish: Dinner --- Kerala Parotta & Mixed Vegetable Curry

For Day 2 of BM# 35, I decided to explore the dinner recipes of Kerala. I have seen Kerala Parotta on a number of blogs and wanted to give them a try. I never ate a properly made Kerala Parotta, I might have eaten a frozen version of it, even that I'm not very sure.

After looking through the recipe the techniquee of making it is similar to lachcha paratha. Only difference being Kerala Parotta is made with all-purpose flour or maida whereas lachcha paratha is made with atta or whole wheat flour. Also parotta has significant amount of oil used.

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Kerala Cabbage Thoran & Sambar

Blogging Marathon# 35: Day 1/ Week 2
Theme: Regional Dishes - Course Specific
Dish: Kerala Cabbage Thoran & Sambar

We are starting our Week 2 of Blogging Marathon# 35 and my theme for this week is 'Any Regional with Course Specific dishes'. After seeing Rajani's Kerala Sadya recipes during the mega month long marathon, I have been planning to try my hand at Kerala dishes. Finally I made 3 dishes for this week's marathon.
The twist that Valli put to this seemingly simple theme is that we have to post a different course every day. So for the first day I'm posting 2 Kerala Lunch dishes, a simple Cabbage thoran and a hearty Sambar.

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Chatti Pathiri for Indian Cooking Challenge

It has been a very eventful day today. I thought it was going to be a quite sunny day and had plans of making 'Chatti Pathiri' for this month's Indian Cooking Challenge in the afternoon. But one phone call changed it all. It changed my mood from sunny to gloomy and I didn't feel like doing anything. I knew it was a problem that could be fixed but still was antsy until it was fixed.

I gave up on participating in this month's ICC, even though I had been anxiously waiting to make this delicious baked dessert from Kerala. Then came the second phone call saying that the issue is solved and there's nothing to worry about at least for the next couple of months. It brightened my mood, but it was almost late after with sunset around 4:30PM, I had less than an hour to make the dessert and then take pictures.

I'm so glad that I did because both my husband and I liked the dessert a lot. My husband said the best part was the nut filling and I have to agree I loved the crunchy poppy seeds & nutty sesame seeds in the filling.

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Kerala Kappa/ Tapioca Masala

I love to try anything vegetarian ingredient at least once. When I saw Nags' post for Kerala Kappa Masala, I wanted to try this new veggie, Tapioca. I'm trying this Tapioca Masala recipe from Edible Garden, who is hosting the Kerala Kitchen cookout this month.

I've seen it in the farmers market and wondered how this strange looking veggie tasted, but never dared to buy it myself. I don't remember seeing this veggie back home and my mom thought it looked like 'karra pendalam', but she wasn't sure. 

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