KOCHI: Remember the good old summer days? You wake up and run to pick those fallen mangoes. Slurping those ripe mangoes with its juice running down your arms is one of the finest joys in life. Summer also means those mouth-watering dishes made using the fruit which was given the ‘superhero’ status a long time ago.
Each bite of the dish feels like home and summer. Even if you’re far away from home, such dishes never fail to invoke the same feelings on any day. That’s what the prawn mango curry, the signature dish rolled out as part of the ‘Erivum Puliyum’ food festival at Cafe Canopy in Kochi, does to you.
One of the highlight dishes at the cafe, prawn mango curry (known as ‘chemmeen manga curry’ in laymen’s tongue) is the most traditional one among all the dishes part of the food festival. “This dish used to be a staple summer dish prepared in all country households in Kerala,” says senior sous chef Abdul Khader of Abad’s Cafe Canopy. For this, the prawns are cooked with sliced green mangoes. The curry reaches perfection when the prawns and mangoes are given a finishing in coconut milk again. The dish tastes best with rice and appam.
Another dish that piques the interest of your taste buds is the ‘meen chatty curry’. The silver pomfret cooked in the traditional style is brought to the table in its most traditional way. In a ‘chatty’. “It is currently the most wanted dish in the cafe. What makes it the best is that it goes with anything at all, be it porotta, rice or appam,” says the chef.
Kerala has always been known for its traditional cuisines. However, with the popularity of global cuisines and ready-to-eat fast food, the reach these traditional dishes have is decreasing. “These dishes are part of our identity. The food festival was planned while keeping this in mind. It is about time for a revival,” says Sajeev K C, Food and Beverages manager.
Headed by chef Khader, a curated list of traditional dishes - including ‘konju chatty curry’, ‘meen moilee’ and ‘mappila kozhi molagu’ - feature the menu of ‘Erivum Puliyum’. The food festival will be on at Cafe Canopy till April 28.