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Mappila magic from Calicut
The Mappilas are the descendants of communities of Arab traders, who had come to Kerala. These Arabs were primarily from the Hadramawt valley of Yemen. The Mappilas are believed to be the first community of Muslims in India and it is believed Islam may have been brought to the coasts of Kerala by Arabs.
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migrator
migrator
Chennai
The trade of Arabs in the Malabar Coast prospered due to the rich availability of pepper and other spices from its land. With many other factors, the support they got from local Hindu rulers helped them to establish a monopoly in the commercial activities in the Indian Ocean.Â
The Malabari Muslims of Calicut have a cuisine that is still distinctly influenced by their Arab ancestors. Moplahs are North Kerala’s Malabari Muslims. Moplah cuisine has a great deal in common with food elsewhere in Kerala in its excessive use of coconut and coconut oil and in its dependence on rice as the staple item of food. The Arab influence is evident, in some of the dishes like alisa, wholesome wheat and meat porridge and the stuffed chicken. The famous biryani must have been brought from Samarkand by the Mughals and the indigenous Muslim rulers of Arcot and Mysore, though the Moplah variations are noteworthy. Many favour a fish biryani in which they use the seer or ayakora varieties. It is an expensive fish, between Rs. 160 to 200 a kilo, but it lends itself beautifully to a biryani. The flesh is tight but it is soft and it does not break up cooking, feel the local cooks. The other biryani is the chicken biryani. Mutton biryani is not so popular but beef and prawn varieties are.Â
There is a certain variety of dishes that is intrinsically Moplah and recognised as such by all Malayalis — the pathiri or rice chapati made in many different ways; the neichoru, exotic fried rice, and the sweet mutta mala, an egg-garland made of the yolks of eggs without a trace of fat. The Moplah style of cooking is distinctly Yemeni. It is Muslim food but quite unlike the Mughlai dishes from Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kashmir and Delhi. Those cuisines are more oily and have richer gravies. Moplah food is not rich. They don’t use too many spices, no ginger-garlic paste, they use chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric, cumin seeds and a few whole spices that they grow. Moplah food, unlike other Mughlai food, will not give you a feeling of fullness at the end of a meal. Moplah cooking is generally done by traditional women cooks called ethathas.
MOPLAH FISH BIRYANI
Main course dish from Kerala, Serves: 3-4
Ingredients:
For fish masala:
King fish - ½ kg
Onion - 2 big
Crushed Ginger & garlic - 1 tablespoon each
Crushed green chili - 1 tablespoon
Tomato - 3 medium
Coriander powder - 1- 2 tsp.
Curd - ¼ cup
Ghee/dalda - 1 tbsp.
Oil
For marinating:
Chili powder - 2 teaspoon
Pepper powder - ½ teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Ginger & garlic - 1 table spoon each
Small onion - 3,4
Fenugreek - a pinch
Mustard - a pinch
Salt
For white paste:
Coconut - 2 tablespoon
Poppy seeds - ½ tablespoon
Cashew nuts - 1 tablespoon (soaked in water)
For rice:
Basmati rice - 2 cups
water - 4 cups
Cardamom - 6
Cinnamon - 2 medium size stick
Clove - 6
Ghee - 2 tbsps.
Lemon Juice - 1-2 tablespoon
Chopped Mint leaves - 1-2 tbsps.
Chopped Coriander leaves - 2-3 tbsps.
Salt
Method:
- Grind together all the ingredients for marinating into a fine paste. Marinate the cleaned fish pieces with this paste for ½ an hour.
- Grind together the ingredients for white paste & keep aside.
- Shallow fry the marinated fish till it is half cooked.
- Add 1 tablespoon ghee to this oil & sauté the onion till it becomes soft. Add the crushed ginger, garlic & green chili & sauté for 3 minutes. Add 1- 2 teaspoon coriander powder. When the oil starts appearing add the tomatoes. When the tomatoes are cooked well add ¼ cup curd. Mix well. Add the shallow fried fish pieces. Make sure that the fish pieces are covered with gravy. After 5 minutes add the white paste. When the gravy becomes thick & fish is cooked remove from fire.
- Heat 1 tablespoon ghee in a pan and add the whole masala (cardamom, cloves & cinnamon). Add the washed rice. When the rice starts cracking add 4 cups of boiling water, salt, coriander & mint leaves & lemon juice. Cook the rice till the water is completely dried.
- Butter a baking dish. Spread one layer of fish masala first & a layer of rice on top of it. Repeat the same. Top layer should be rice.
- Preheat the oven at 200 C, 10 mins before baking. Reduce the oven temp to 180 C and bake for 20-25 minutes. Spread an aluminum foil, over the dish while baking [avoid if using a microwave oven]. Garnish with fried onions, nuts, and raisins. Serve the biriyani with raita, & pappad.
Stove Top Method:Â
If you don’t have an oven to bake the biryani, follow this method.
- Layer the rice and masala in a greased heavy bottomed vessel/nonstick pan & cover it with a tight lid.
- Heat a thava/dosa kallu, when it is really hot, place the biryani vessel on top of that. Reduce the heat to the lowest flame & cook for 20-25 mins. Keep the heat at the lowest flame throughout, otherwise it might get burnt.
- Also place a pan of boiling water on top of the biryani vessel at the same time.
- Make sure you stir the fish masala gently; otherwise the fish pieces may break. There are chances of fish pieces breaking and the bones get mixed up in the gravy, even if you stir gently. So be careful about the separated bones, while serving children.
The writer is a chef and author of Festive Offerings to the Gods
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