You'd think Chettinad cuisine is all about the hyper-local flavours, cooked in ancient, traditional methods. Until you taste the stodgy bread and butter putting, that's part of the 'Butler Cuisine' of the 'Chettinad Bangalas' aka bungalows.
Listen in for more!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
[00:00:00] Kusai in Tamil Nadu Chettinad Cuisine today is not actually so. Therefore, if actually not too oily or spicy, now do they have the habit of adding coconut to increase the quantity. The gravy is a watery, the oil is spice and all the flavours are subtle and balanced.
[00:00:31] That is original Chettinad. That is a original Chettinad Pupa. That's Ravati Shannmugam. A YouTube sensation from before YouTube even existed. She has been cooking for the camera since the early 90s and you won't find a better expert in Chettinad cuisine. How's that for Authenticity?
[00:01:00] Welcome to a piping hot episode of Southern Slurp, spiced with recipes and myths and list with a bit of history. I'm Vikram, your host and this week we'll be digging into a tasting menu from Chettinad. Before we begin, save us this.
[00:01:20] Southern Slurp is on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Geosawal. The playlist of full blown South Indian feast by now, so do check it out. There's Biryani and way over the other end you have the pulyodhari and everything else in between.
[00:01:49] Chettinad cuisine is a genre by itself, and I say genre because it's like a supermarket for the senses. Let me explain. Consider this. Gujarati cuisine is mostly sweet, and Rakh cuisine is typically high on richly heat. Bengali food is unmistakably laced with mustard and poppy.
[00:02:10] Tamil cuisine in general has a turmeric and honey-based, care-lac cuisine is all about the coconut. Chettinad cuisine can't be reduced to a one-liner. It's a headline.
[00:02:22] It's got recipes that would sit well in a desert in Rajasthan, but also some of the finest versions of fish gravy and prawn curry. You could dedicate a complete section to its awful menu, like brain masala and stomach sambals,
[00:02:36] or drool over the legendary pepper chicken and prawn gravy, and yet an elaborate vegetarian feast, replete with baby potato fry will make the table grown. You'd think Chettinad cuisine is all about the high-pilocal flavors cooked in ancient traditional methods.
[00:02:54] Until you taste the stodgy bread and butter pudding that's part of the buttler cuisine of the Chettinad bungalas, aka bungalows. Chettinad is rich, period, just like the Chettias after whom it is named.
[00:03:13] The presentation, the setting, the stories behind the recipes and the Chettias themselves, is a movie worth making, and a story that needs telling, and of course it has to be grand in scale.
[00:03:26] After all, the Chettians of Tamil Nadu have historically been richer than the kings who ruled over them, and their feasts equally magnificent. I know what you must be thinking. What is Chettinad? Chettinad is this small region in South Tamil Nadu that's about 1500 square kilometers and about 76 villages large.
[00:03:49] A part of this cluster of about 30 villages finds itself in the UNESCO nominations for its outstanding universal value. In other words, everything in the area, from the police shield old world houses to the culture and habits as well as the food and cuisine,
[00:04:05] is of historic and cultural value, and those who belong to this cluster whose roots are here, are called Nagarathars or Townfuck, since it was they who transformed the villages into something more. They are also called the Nartekotai Chettias or simply Chettias.
[00:04:23] Traditionally, the Chettias are mercantile bankers and traders of salt and spices, and this reflects wonderfully in the flavors of their food. For a community who live in villages that are deep in land far away from the oceans,
[00:04:41] they are cuisine offers of some exceptional seafood recipes, and that is because they have been maritime traders from even before the 8th century. And a number of them emigrated to Sillone and Burma in the 19th and 20th centuries,
[00:04:55] because their traders who travel the world, they have palate, does too. And so you will find global influences in their recipes, ingredients and cooking methods. It's time to show and then tell, mother is Archie in Chettias Lang. Now here is Rehwati Shannmugam and Rehwati Archie.
[00:05:22] Rehwati Archie is a YouTube sensation and a TV chef since the 90s like I told you, and they are in Liza's story. Kitchen the Samakya's equivalent to Minga Masley and then... Well, quite a little in the kitchen you can decide to temper,
[00:05:35] g-r-in-stuff-must, and in a meat on the spot. Even when you cook using a good wood, you can improvise. Cook the show all the Samakya's up there should be perfect. It's easy to use. The amount of water, the way you temper, nothing should change.
[00:05:49] Each level is the end of the Canada. At home, the proportions are based on my eye and instinct. Show all the contrapose. But why on the show? I need to specify how many teaspoons are tablespoons. I don't know how many tablespoons are in the pot.
[00:06:04] So, it makes a lot of difference. She's the daughter of the legendary lyricist and poet Kanada Asar. I think that's what I mean. When my aunt cooks, there would be a reason behind each ingredient. While cooking mutton for example, chili powder, cumin powder, cloves, ginger, garlic,
[00:06:27] would be ground together. Chicken is the bottom of the bowl. But for chicken, pepper, salt and garlic would be all that. But now, ginger. When asked, she would say chicken, and it is a chicken, so no ginger. The pepper helps dissipate the heat. The aspect is not that.
[00:06:44] It's not that simple. For example, my mother's mother would make fish quorum both. She may be smoked up there, but especially this per evening. I have a reason you have a small food as a specialty. But she did it even then. As soon as she removed the onion,
[00:06:58] the pot from the fire, she would drop her head hot cold from the fire into the quorum both. Pour a ladle of cashew oil over it and immediately close it. The cashew oil would react with the cold and begin to smoke.
[00:07:11] The smoke would permeate the quorum both and lay it on the meat. The quorum would later be discarded while serving. So there was a reason behind the method. While I was cooking, the quorum would be taken out of the meat.
[00:07:26] So I had to cook it for a few minutes. So I had to cook it for a few minutes. And I had to cook it for another few minutes. And an aesthetic that was rooted in Tamil tradition, but touched by their wonderful lust.
[00:08:10] And so the police shell houses of the Chettiars, which are pillars of bermatic, Belgian mirrors, Bohemian crystal chandeliers, Italian marble, and skills of wood carving, frescoes and egg plastering from the UK and Germany. And all of this within village style,
[00:08:27] multi-layered tile roofs and typical Tamil temple style flourishes. Makes you want to check out the houses, no? You must. But the tasteier point I'm making is that Chettiars cuisine is just so. Take for example the crab rassemb, which is traditional
[00:08:43] and at least 12 centuries old, but comes from the far away ocean. All the upakari, mutton fry, that's a more ancient rural hand-me-down, which peasants and the zamindars cook alike. And then of course there's the mundi, the quintessential Chettiar dish. It's a gravy, but it's also a curry.
[00:09:02] It's an accompaniment, but it's tasty enough yet mild enough to eat as is even without rice. It's a combination of Malaysian influences, Indian spices, and that inimitable Chettiar Mac of combining head-ease spice in a way that leaves the final dish with subtle flavors
[00:09:19] that don't make you gasped for water. This is under our vice-operator, located in San Gideon. This is something I learned from an elder in the community. It is called Palakamandi, or Palakai Mandu, many vegetable mandi, and also Mandi-karamandi, or the Mandi of the Card driver.
[00:09:46] This would be eaten with rice, rice, growl, and it would be a mix of all the local vegetables. So, I didn't take any of them. I didn't take any of them, but I took them all.
[00:10:06] I took them all, and I took them all, and I took them all. Every ingredient had a purpose to eat. Fennaguri would dissipate the heat, garlic, and onion would take care of the gas and indigestion. Tamarin would help preserve it, and also stimulate salvation.
[00:10:21] So, it would be an aiding digestion. That's why this Mandi was a part of Joliz, those days. And the Mandi was a part of Joliz, those days. And the Mandi. But in the end, the Mandi is a part of Joliz. Here is my version.
[00:10:33] I had four brinjal, half a rabana, half a potter, four taste, some red beans, and clustered beans, and a drumstick. And the mandi is a little bit more spicy. Other than that, the chili is a little bit spicy. I used them all into small pieces.
[00:10:47] In four to five tablespoons of oil, temper, mustard, fenugreek, and red chilies. And a handful of small onions, and garlic, and green chilies in proportion. If you want to add one guy in a pound of pepper, I'll add nothing for the garlic.
[00:11:02] Salt, all the other vegetables as well. And the gold ball-ficed tamarin, that was soaked in the water, in which the rice was washed, are salt, that the whole tin reduced considerably, and then removed from the thing. This keeps well for four days. Today's Mandi has been modernized.
[00:11:20] Some people add okra, and lemma beans. Mango ginger, channel and capsicum is another interesting combination. The tamarin chutiar comes from the 3000 year old honorific from the Sangam era, 80, which was bestowed on select merchants by the monaks. The chutiar, it is said, who originally from a land named Naganada.
[00:11:46] It was from there that they migrated to what is known as Chetinada today with Karekudi, as its financial hub. Legend has it that they fled continual floods in route, and that is why all of their homes are built upon elevated platforms much higher than ground level.
[00:12:02] But that's not the interesting thing. The interesting thing about the houses is the sheer size, and the fact that there always always always, well stopped with food. There's this oft repeated story and it goes like this. Once a thief breaks into a Chetiar's mansion
[00:12:25] and promptly loses himself in it. Unable to find his way out, he wanders deeper and deeper. He finds Russian and utensils, and he cooks for himself and eats and sleeps. And after spending about a month inside the mansion, he finally comes out.
[00:12:54] The truly affluent Chetiar's are quite philanthropic, but even within the mud walls of the poorest of them, you will find warm welcome and unbelievably tasty food. Because Chetinada cuisine tends to go subtle on flavors despite using so many spices,
[00:13:09] it's not easy to replicate the taste in a different or a modern setting. And so cool pressed sesame oil in the traditional oil mill, Chetinese ground using the mortar and pestle, and rice flour ground in the Yandiram. are all central to recreating the authentic taste, but why not?
[00:13:26] There is some weight to the mix of spices and the combination of flavors in each recipe that will come through even in a microwave kitchen. Here's the recipe for the upakari, a fried mutton dish that's been prepared in Chetinada homes since millennia. In the upakari in mutting,
[00:13:49] this is just upakumata sethi. The mutton would be salted and boiled well in a mutt pot in dosis. The meat that is boiled will have to be very, very tender and must be stewed and carefully. It would be removed when far boiled. In some oil,
[00:14:06] ur dal, funk and rice chilies would be tempered and the meat added to this along with the water it was boiled in. It would be then cooked until the water completely dissipates. No other ingredient other than just a ur dal, funk and rice chili. Even in my house,
[00:14:25] some eat curd rice will be flavored with chetinada. I'm not sure if I can find it in the microwave but I'm not sure if I can find it in the microwave.
[00:15:06] Let me know what you think and what I should include in the next episode of Chetinada. And as always, thank you for listening.