About two decades ago, my mother used to spend hours at the kitchen perfecting the Chicken Coconut Curry, when occasions called for a big fat Goan meal. As with Goan dishes of Portuguese origin, the dish was a test in patience and muscle-flexing.
She’d get down on her haunches to rhythmically maneuver a halved coconut over the spiky metal head of the bulky wooden scraper for a fresh mound of desiccated white flakes speckled with brown. Then roast ingredients in order of their weight: cumin, clove, cinnamon, pepper, ginger and garlic, scraped coconut, onion, red chilies.
And coarsely grind these into a wet masala using a pestle (the size of a mini club) over a 2-ft long mortar; the aroma hanging heavy around the house long after.
I was kept away from these kitchen aids (imagine the coconut shell accidently slipping off and your hand meeting the scraper). But after many moons of such toiling, she’s settled for ready-made grated coconut and masala pastes/powders.
It’s the story of many households, when consumed by minimalism (sleek, lightweight gadgets) and millennialism (apps over appams – its cooking process crosses 10 hours). The result: the recipes of yore now lack their original punch.
Culinary expert in such grueling but delicious recipes is Bengaluru’s Karavalli restaurant at The Gateway Hotel, under the Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) banner.
It specialises in south-west India (Kerala, Karnataka and Goa) cuisine, after its chefs learnt each of its 85 dishes firsthand at the kitchens of, as noted on its website, ‘Mangalorean Bunts and Konkanis, Kodavas from Coorg, Malayalees, Calicut Muslims and Syrian Christians of Travancore, Havyaka Brahmins of Vitla and the Portuguese of Goa’.
This year, few Delhi restaurants under IHCL marked milestones (Thai Pavilion completed 25 years and House of Ming, 40), where in-house chefs switched places and hosted pop-ups. And now Varq, the premium Indian cuisine restaurant at Taj Mahal Hotel, is celebrating its 11th anniversary and is hosting a pop-up by 29-year-old Karavalli for a few days.
Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef at Karavalli, says the pop-up will benefit Delhities, underexposed to the south Indian coastal cuisine. He’s also full of trivia. Like how the one traditional food item thrives under different names in different regions of India.
Like the Coorgi staple souring agent kachampuli (Malabar tamarind) is balsamic vinegar’s doppelganger, look and taste-wise.
“Kerala’s rice-noodle dish of idiyappam is called shavige in Mangalore and nooputtu in Coorg, with slight variations to the steaming process,” informs chef Thimmaiah.
An example of this trivia was the first starter we sampled at the pop-up – Kerala’s Meen Eleittad (black pomfret fillet shallowed fried with Malabar masala and wrapped in banana leaf). When unopened, it’s identical to the Parsi Patra-ne-Macchi.
But when done so, you find a red masala slapped onto the fillet, which lends it a medium-spicy flavour. Quite unlike the Parsi fish dish steamed in fresh, green coconut chutney. About the juicy Tiger Prawn Roast, it might seem the chef forgot to add the salt till you mix it in its own gravy of spices, vegetables and coconut slivers and then bite in.
The Koli Barthad chicken is a good introduction to the tart Coorgi kachampuli. As a light palate cleanser, the Pachakkari Stew (vegetable chunks in coconut milk) works best.
The desserts made an impression. The Bebinca was soft, warm, and nearly perfect, but could do with more caramelised layers.
The soft, brownish-black banana-jaggery Dodol topped with banana ice-cream was a bite-sized wonder. But the highlight was the creamy Ada Pradhaman – thick mix of rice flakes, coconut milk and jaggery – quite identical to Goa’s Godshem, only without chana/moong dal the latter’s made of.
Till: September 28
At: Varq, Taj Mahal Hotel, One Mansingh Road