Thali from Tamil Nadu

Another week has flown by and it’s time to explore the cuisine from another Indian state. This weekend we tried our hand at cooking up a thali from the state of Tamil Nadu. A big shout out to our friend Meena for all the help and guidance with coming up with the menu. I’m sure we didn’t come close to how she cooks these dishes but we definitely gave it our best shot!! We will be honest though, we didn’t expect a lot of surprises from this cuisine since we grew up eating some of these dishes both at home or in restaurants in South India. As expected we found Tamarind and Coconut to be the star ingredients in the meal. But we were pleasantly surprised to find the usage of fennel seeds and poppy seeds as well which we naively thought were really used only in the eastern states in India. We also tried our hand at making ‘Parotta” for the very first time and now have new respect for this complex dish. Also a disclaimer, we are aware that there are a lot of dishes that are shared between the Southern Indian states like Sambhar, Rasam and Parotta to name a few. We have added these dishes to the thali since we know that it is also commonly eaten within that state but in no way are we claiming that it only hails from that state. Let’s get started then.

Seviyan Payasam (Link to recipe)

Starting on a sweet note, we made this Seviyan Payasam(a.k.a Vermicelli Pudding) using the Instant Pot and it came out simply delicious. The addition of saffron and toasted almonds further enhanced the flavor of the dish.

Beans Poriyal (Link to recipe)

A simple wholesome dish, the coconut complements the beans perfectly while the mustard, curry leaves and red chillies add an extra layer to the taste.

Vendakkai puli kuzhambu (Link to recipe)

Personally, I made this entire meal to learn how to make this dish. As already mentioned, I love Okra and I also love any dish with a tangy taste so this Okra in Tamarind curry dish was in theory made just for me. And it did not disappoint. Absolutely loved the taste of this dish and will definitely make it again.

Cauliflower and peas korma (Link to recipe)

As my friend pointed out, Korma is a dish best eaten with Parotta. So we decided to make both the Korma and Parotta as part of the meal. The usage of poppy seeds in this dish was really surprising but it may have attributed to the final taste which was definitely similar to what we have eaten at restaurants before.

Sambhar (Link to recipe)

While we have linked out to a recipe for sambhar, we didn’t follow any recipe for this dish. The true driver of the taste for this dish is the sambhar powder and I used the powder that was made by Amma (my mom), so yes this dish was awesome and the credit completely goes to Amma :-)

Tomato Rasam (Link to recipe)

Tomato rasam, a staple in most South Indian kitchens, it’s a great dish to start a meal with as a soup or to mix with rice towards the end of the meal. The taste and credit for this dish also goes to Amma, since I did use her homemade rasam powder.

Thair Sadam (Link to recipe)

This is a savory yogurt rice dish that is eaten at the end of the meal. Any meal we have eaten from Tamil Nadu has always ended with yogurt rice so we felt that this had to be part of the menu. We also fried up some curd chillies that go excellently with the dish (as seen in the thali picture above).

Eral Thokku (Link to recipe)

This prawn masala dish was made extra special with the addition of fennel seeds and curry leaves.

Chicken Chettinad (Link to recipe)

This dish was the reason behind Vikram choosing Tamil Nadu this weekend. He really wanted to explore how to make this curry. As he and our daughter can attest, this dish was a grand success.

Finally, we didn’t get a picture of the Parotta separately but this dish definitely deserves a write-up. We never knew how elaborate it was to make until we actually started making it. Making this dish is quite the art form. We had to try our hand at making a few before it actually even looked like a Parotta. And never knew the fluffiness of the Parotta came from the layers of dough mixed with a LOT of oil. No wonder this dish is simply yummy!!

This weekend’s venture ended up bringing back memories of all the times we had eaten these dishes, whether it was during Vikram’s stint in Chennai for work or the meals I had eaten in the houses of my parent’s friends or Meena’s house during sleep-overs. As they say “Food is memories” and we definitely walked down memory lane while making this meal.

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