Tamil Cuisine - Common Dishes

Common Dishes

Rice is the major staple food of most of the Tamil people. Lunch or Dinner is usually a meal of steamed rice(Choru), served with accompanying items, which typically include sambar, dry curry, rasam, kootu and thayir (curd, but as used in India refers to yogurt) or more (buttermilk).

Breakfast usually includes idli, pongal, dosai, aval (flattened rice), puttu, idiyappam, appam with sweetened coconut milk, chapathi, sevai, Vadai which are of 2 kinds - (medhuvadai meaning soft vadai and paruppuvadai meaning lentils vadai) Vadai, along with coconut chutney, sambar and Milagai podi. Tiffin is usually accompanied by hot filter coffee, the signature beverage of the city.

• Uthappam.

• Parota made with maida or all-purpose flour.

• Upma, made from wheat (rava), onion, green chillies. May also be substituted with broken rice granules, flattenned rice flakes, Or almost any other cereal grain instead of broken wheat.

• Thogaiyal, made from coconut, dal or coriander leaves

• Coffee is the most popular beverage. Coffee is a major social institution in Southern Indian Tamil tradition. Its also called the Madras (a) Chennai Filter Coffee and is unique to this part of the world. They generally use gourmet coffee beans of the premium Peaberry or the less expensive Arabica variety. The making of filter coffee is like a ritual, as the coffee beans are first roasted and then powdered. Sometimes they add chicory to enhance the aroma. They then use a filter set, few scoops of powdered coffee, enough boiling water is added to prepare a very dark liquid called the decoction. A 3/4 mug of hot milk with sugar, a small quantity of decoction is then served in Dabarah/Tumbler set, a unique Coffee cup.

• Another popular beverage is strongly brewed tea, found in the thousands of small tea stalls across the state of Tamil Nadu and adjoining areas.

• Dosai, crepes made from a fermented batter of rice and urad dal (black gram), and is accompanied by Sambar; also see Masala dosai.

• Idli, steamed rice-cakes, prepared from a fermented batter of rice and urad dal (black gram), and side-dishes are usually different kinds of chutney or sambhar.

• Puliyodarai, Puli=Tamarind, thorai/thoran=fry, is a popular Tamil dish and widely specialised among Tamil Iyengars and famous throughout Karnataka as Puliyogare. It is a mixture of fried tamarind paste and cooked rice. The tamarind paste is fried with sesame oil, asofoetida and fenugreek powder, dried chilly, groundnuts, split chickpea, urad dal, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves, turmeric powder and seasoned with light jaggery and salt.

• Sambar, a thick stew of lentils with vegetables and seasoned with exotic spices
• Rasam, lentil soup with pepper, coriander and cumin seeds
• Thayir sadam, steamed rice with curd
• Sevai or Idiyappam, rice noodles made out of steamed rice cakes.
• Kottu

• South Indian Coffee, also known as Filter Coffee, is a sweet milky coffee popular in Tamil Nadu. There is also a version called Kumbakonam Degree coffee. It is quite similar to the cappuccino and latte varieties of coffee. Masala Paal (masala milk), sweetened milk with aromatic spices.

Other snack items include murukku, seedai, bajji, karapori, mixture, sevu, and pakoda which are typically savoury items.