Insights
Tamil and South Indian cooking, and what it takes to run a kitchen in the UAE.
6 guides
How Chettinad's dried, trade-built pantry, kalpasi, marathi mokku and star anise among them, differs from the rice and coconut cooking of the Cauvery delta at Thanjavur, and which of those ingredients India's Spices Board actually recognises.
6 min read
Ambur, Vaniyambadi and Dindigul each claim a distinct biryani, and the Dindigul-born Thalappakatti chain has taken one version nationwide. This covers the rice, the masala base, the cooking claims and the histories behind each, and what a missing GI tag means for all three.
6 min read
Sambar, rasam and kuzhambu are often used as if they mean the same wet, tamarind-based side dish. This sets out the base of each, where toor dal actually goes in, how the tempering differs, and which one is not a kuzhambu at all.
6 min read
How the two-tumbler filter, the chicory blend regulated by food safety law, beans from two Western Ghats districts and the davara pour combine to make South Indian filter coffee taste the way it does.
6 min read
Why pickle sits on the left of the leaf and payasam waits until the end, what the leaf's tapering tip signals to the diner, and how the order of a Kerala sadya changes between Travancore and Malabar households.
6 min read
How a maida dough is kneaded, rested and rubbed with oil until it will pull into paper-thin sheets, why those sheets are coiled or tossed into layers, and where Malabar, Kerala and Tamil Nadu's veechu parotta actually diverge.
6 min read
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