Chettinad Cuisine Up Close

The intricacies that go into the foods of this culturally-rich community of South India are a heritage in itself. Devanshi Mody takes a walk through fabled lands of the grand Chettiar era and uncovers just what Chettinad cuisine is all about, with recipes exclusively for you

Around Kanadukathan, in the pristine outskirts of Chettinad, in wreaths of lush bucolic landscapes, goats graze in abundance. The goats are reared in these parts not for milk but meat. Mutton biryani is a famous regional speciality. It is amongst the better-known but more banal of Chettinad’s offerings. For vast and varied is the mighty repertoire of Chettinad’s culinary fare. Indeed, you could get a whole cookbook out of dishes particular to the little village alone. But don’t expect anything too rustic. If this indigenous cuisine has a refinement akin to something you are likely to find in a fine dining restaurant, it is because the cuisine of this region follows time-honoured practices to execute time-consuming dishes. “Time,” in fact, is an integral ingredient in Chettinad’s culinary culture.
Those fabled Chettinadu mansions, dilapidated relics of a grand era, languish forlorn along the grid system of narrow streets around Visalam, an heritage home turned into a hotel. Tradition is certainly upheld in the culinary ethos of the hotel, built as a dowry for a young bride. As per custom in old Chettiar families, a village amma is called upon to fulfill this heritage abode’s culinary duties. And eating is a “duty,” perhaps the foremost, in the pantheon of a Chettiar’s duties!
The incumbent amma at Visalam is Lakshmi Amma who will attest to the stringent grounding she has received working in Chettiar homes under pernickety and irate mistresses of grand families. Exactitude is another essential component of Chettinad’s culinary culture.
Another prerequisite is an understanding of the multitude of fascinating contraptions used to cut, pound, grind, roast and cook complex preparations. If you have walked through the antique market of Karaikudi you will have seen some of these crafty implements.
Chettinad’s cuisine, if devoid of shortcuts, is plentiful in rich spices, which are its veritable hallmark. But this does not mean, as is often taken to be, a fiery onslaught of chilli. Rather, it is an intricate interplay of a tingling range of spices that come together to produce an extraordinary combination of flavours unique to the region.
“In Karaikudi restaurants Chettinadu chicken curry is made in 10 minutes,” it is often said. But following an authentic recipe will require an hour to produce the same dish. The time and refinement lies in the method of hand-pounding, hand-grinding and slow-roasting spices, herbs and other ingredients followed by slow-cooking. Indeed, the new global trend of “slow-cooking” is an age-old tradition in these parts and makes for creations boasting what could qualify as “Michelin-starred” textures. The miracle is that whilst “Michelin-starred” cuisine is about making small quantities, cooks from the grand mansions of Chettinad achieve incredible sophistication even when cooking for immense families with their immense feasts. Indeed, these cooks are accustomed to cooking for 500 people (remark those enormous cauldrons in any heritage Chettiar home with ladles like they were made for Gulliver!). Locals describe quite dramatically how they have seen cooks in big homes fling huge quantities of salt, chilli or any other ingredient and yet get the proportions JUST RIGHT through sheer practice or likelier an innate dexterity and culinary intuition.
There certainly seems displayed in the finest Chettinadu cuisine an inherent talent for cooking and “magic in the fingers” that comes from something other than mere grooming. Let’s call it guile. One marvels at the technique with which a village amma with no Cordon Bleu certificate flicks her wrist, swirls with such speed and smoothness ingredients tossed seemingly negligently into large skillets, intuiting precisely what to throw in when, and switch off the gas when perfection has been attained.
Whilst Chettinadu cuisine is often meaty and chicken curry is the first thing that springs to mind when you think of this cuisine, the vegetarian preparations are a revelation, an intriguing symphony of subtle and nuanced flavours delicately stitching in the spices the cuisine is celebrated for like sequins into a silk cushion cover. It is, certainly, the vegetarian dishes that arrest the attention of a gourmet seeking to delve into the treasure trove of taste that is Chettinadu cuisine.
Over a banana leaf lunch at Visalam you will discover a plethora of specialities you are unlikely to come across – unless you are fortunate enough to be invited to a Chettiar wedding. A dry yam curry, Karunakilangu Masiyal, enjoys an exalted place amidst the pageantry of colourful preparations mesmerisingly arrayed around the vibrant green banana leaf. The tremendous appeal of tamarind is best exemplified in tangy Vattal Kozhumbu made with nightshade berries where the quality of gingelly oil makes for the terrific flavour. Whilst kozhumbu is pervasive across Tamil Nadu, mandis, a tamarind gravy-based curry made with “sediment” or water from washing rice, is a Chettinadu speciality, best expressed in Vendakai Mandi (made with ladies fingers). Kodamilagai or capsicum mandi is a more unusual and thoroughly exquisite preparation. Extensive use of country vegetables is another interesting feature. Any visitor to Chettinad would not have left without having Podilangai (bottle gourd) Koottu several times over! Lentils, too, are implemented in exciting ways as in a Thattapayaru (cow peas) Kozhambu and Avarakka or broad beans Sambar. Chettinadu cuisine is marked by a preponderance of onions and garlic – expect heaps of onions and entire cloves of garlic cooked to wonderful pert texture. Ginger often is subdued, if anything can be called “subdued” in a style of cuisine with often intensely pronounced flavours. More placid preparations include Kothamalli (fresh coriander) Vadai, drumstick leaves soup and kosmalli, a benign, countrified aubergine dish contrasting with the fiestier and more renowned Enna Kathirikkai, aubergine curry. Innovative strokes come in a playful pineapple Mor Kozhumbu, a modern take on a rich, thick yogurt-based preparation served at room temperature, almost like a local version of kadhi.
Chettinad’s gamut of breakfast and dinner offerings are accompanied by an elaborate spectrum of chutneys, a different sort married with particular creations, notably starters on breakfast platters bearing authentic Chettiar specialities whose existence you would never have imagined and whose names you can barely pronounce – think kantharappam,   kallappam, kallaveetuavial… (no wonder simple-to-pronounce Chettinadu chicken is the region’s best-known dish!).
However, to revert to the point about chutneys, even chutney, which you think is something so simple, becomes a work of art in the hands of an expert local when you come to appreciate that the trick is in the proportions of even basic ingredients and the exactitude of the tadkas. Alas, today, despite the ode to handmade and slow-cooking chutneys (unless warm ones like garlic and onion-laden tomato chutney), are prepared using “short cuts” in mixies (anyone who has tasted hand-ground coconut chutney can tell the GLARING difference); flour is no longer hand-pounded; batter for idlis, dosas, vadai, adai etc, too, is produced using machines.
The spices themselves probably come from Kerala (there are no spices grown in Chettinad…), but the whole point of Chettinadu cuisine is that you rarely serve spices whole! Often, even professional chefs trained under a Chettiar don’t quite understand the intricacies of Chettinadu cuisine. It is an academic exercise for a discerning palate to remark how widely different flavours may be extorted from the very same spices across different kinds of cuisine from Chettinadu to Keralite depending on how the spices are manipulated. And the hallmark of Chettinadu cuisine is its mastery over spices.
Off-the-beaten-track, or rather off-the-eaten-track, local specialities include local sweetmeats which you won’t usually find at any Chettinadu hotel or restaurant.
So avail of the recipes here, and at the back, for the fabulous fare that Chettinad cooking presents.

Puli Inji

Aadi Kummayam

Kalan Uppu Kari