HYDERABAD: A typical day in a rural Telangana household begins with a glass of ragi malt. The drink is considered as a coolant for the body in the harsh weather conditions. It is also highly nutritious and provides the necessary energy for quite a long duration.
Telangana is largely a dry state and the weather conditions are not suitable to grow vegetables. Hence people in the state mostly depend on millets and meat.
High on spices
All the dishes are hot as they use freshly ground red chillies and green chillies along with tamarind. These ingredients are present in every dish that is made in this region.
This is part of the well-balanced breakfast meal that comprises millet-based rotis (ragi or jonna) usually eaten along with meat curry that is called pulusu. The rotis are not just rolled out using a regular rolling pin, but they are tapped till the dough is flattened.
Meat includes chicken, mutton – boti and talakaya curries – where boti is the curry made of lamb gizzards that are found in the lamb intestines and talakaya curry is made of goat’s head meat, freshwater fish, dried prawns and dried fish. The meat is cooked with leafy vegetables like puntikura, gongura and also spinach. Popular chicken dish is the natu kodi koora translated to country chicken fried curry.
Fried meat dishes are often hot.
While the ragi malt is had in the morning, neera or toddy is also part of the diet.
Interesting combinations
Rice is also a staple in the region. Variants of rice include bagara khana that is cooked with basic spices like onions, bay leaf and mint. This is often combined with the meat curries and also another dish called pachi pulusu. By the name, all the ingredients used in this pulusu are raw – onions, chillies, tamarind, jeera and fenugreek seeds and salt. These ingredients are heated in oil and then mixed with water. This is generally eaten with khichdi.
Gongura pappu is another staple dal dish that is eaten often in the region along with jonna rottlelu.
Lip smacking snacks
Sarva pindi is another regularly consumed dish that resembles a pan cake. It is well spiced and made with rice flour, chana dal and groundnuts. It is steamed in a dish called sarva (a deep bottomed dish) and hence the name.
This is often eaten as a snack.
Another tasty snack is the sakkinalu. These are similar to murukulu but the process of making these is much more elaborate. While the basic elements like the rice flour, spices, sesame seeds, ajwain and salt are the same, the way the flour is batter is dipped in the frying pan makes all the difference. A craft in itself, women make a dough of the flour and then dip the flour slowly and consistently, similar to the movement drawing a muggu, into the pan to form close concentric circles. The perfect sakkinam is that where each circle is thin and the circles go up to 10 or more.
Hot on the palate
Most households in Telangana have their own grinding stones and the chutneys are freshly ground. The basic ingredients of all the chutneys are garlic, green and red chillies and tamarind. The avakaya, tomato, garlic and other pickles are similar to Andhra region. The ginger and jaggery avakaya is a variant. Prawn, chicken, fish and mutton pickles are an added variety in this region.
Sweet variants
Sweets include karijelu, that is a flour-based dish stuffed with jaggery and scraped coconut, boondi laddu and bakshalu (also called bobbatlu), which are sweet-filled rotis made of maida.
And closer home, the Deccani food needs no mention