Thekkady travel guide

Kerala fish curry

Kerala's most celebrated dish—fresh fish (typically kavuni or sardines) simmered in a sauce of coconut milk, kodampuli (gamboge) and a blend of Kerala spices; the gamboge gives it an incomparable deep tangy flavor absent from any other Indian fish curry

Appam stew

See Appam with stew—Kerala's delicate lacy rice pancakes served with mild coconut milk chicken or vegetable stew; one of South India's most refined breakfast combinations; the pale stew of pearl onions, spiced gently with cardamom, contrasts with the fermented appam edge

Spice-infused dishes

India's aromatic cooking heritage—the specific combination of black cardamom, kalpasi (stone flower), marathi mokku, star anise, mace and dried rose petals that appear uniquely in Chettinad, Kashmiri wazwan and Hyderabadi biryani masalas

Cardamom tea

Indian chai with fresh cardamom—crushed green cardamom added to the chai base gives a floral, cooling note in an otherwise warming drink; the Kashmiri version uses whole cardamom pods; the South Indian filter coffee equivalent uses cardamom as the single added spice

Elephant foot yam curry

Keralas and Karnataka's distinctive vegetable preparation—suran (elephant foot yam) is cooked in coconut milk with green chili and coriander; the yam's starchy, dense texture absorbs curry differently from potato; particularly important in festivals and as a meat substitute