Kerala Seafood Cuisine

The Basic Essentials

• In Kerala, seafood is cooked in many methods using coconut milk, wrapping the fish in a banana leaf or simply frying the fish with lots of spices.
  
  Clay Pot (Meen Chatti)
  There is a special pot used for cooking fish or prawns curries in the authentic Kerala style. It is called 'Meen Chatti' and a minimum of 2 pots are found in every household (of people who eat fish). One can buy it with or without a lid which is again made of clay.
  
  A 'Chatti' is an eathernware round pot with a curvy base, usually red or black in color. A new 'chatti' has to be 'treated' before it can be used. It is held over a hot stove for sometime then filled with hot starch water for days before it can be used for cooking.
  
  Tamarind
  
  A fruit Gambooge is used for preparing fish curries. It is called 'Koddum Puli' in the native language of Kerala i.e. Malayalam. It is basically added for flavour and to give a sour taste to the fish curries. Koddum Pulli is a fruit which is yellowish in color, then it is dried in hot sun till it turns black and used for cooking. It is either shredded into small pieces or used as a whole piece and submerged in a bowl of water before putting it in the curry.
  
  Coconut Milk
  
  This is optional. You do not need this for a simple fish or prawns curry. However, there are some dishes you need to use coconut milk for. Coconut milk is extracted from fresh coconuts. Its broken into two halves.
  
  Then the coconut is grated into shreds. The shreds are then squeezed to extract the milk. Coconut milk is again seperated into 2 kinds. The thick milk and the thin milk. The thin milk is added first and then the thick milk is added just towards the end so that it does not curdle.
  
  Spices
  Spices are an essential ingredient for any Indian Cooking. The main spices required for seafood preparation is turmeric, black peppercorns, coriander powder, rock salt, red chilli powder, fenugreek powder and ginger-garlic paste.
  
  Shallots, curry leaves and green chillies are also used for marination paste and to thicken the gravy. Shallots are tiny reddish onions, smaller than the normal onion and extensively used in Kerala cooking for garnishing.

Famous Seafood Preparation

1. Meen Pollichathu (Fish cooked in Banana Leaf)
This dish is prepared best with Pearl Spot Fish (Karimeen). This fish is a local catch mainly in the coasts of Allappuzha. It cleaned and marinated with various spices. Then it is roasted and wrapped in a banana leaf. Then this wrap is kept on a flat pan and cooked on low flame for 20 minutes.

2. Meen Vevichathu (Red Fish Curry)
The fish used for this curry can range anything from Kingfish to pomfrets to any fish that is fleshy. The ideal fish would be Kingfish. It is authentically made in the 'Meen chatti' shown above. The Red Fish curry is a simple dish made with spices esp. Kashmiri red chilli powder which gives a lot of color without making it too spicy. Coconut milk is not added to this curry.

For Recipes visit Kerala Seafood Cuisine