Chettinaad Mushrooms

Chettinaad cuisine is the cuisine of the Chettiar community who lived in the Chettinaad region of Tamil Nadu, South India. A variety of aromatic fresh spices are used to make some very flavorful dishes.

The Chettiars have traditionally been vegetarians. Their feasts at lifestyle ritual functions remain vegetarian. But trade once had them criss-crossing the southern reaches of peninsular India and absorbing non-vegetarian influences from the Malabar Coast, where Christians of the Orthodoxy of West Asia and Muslims lived in large numbers and Hindus too tended to non-vegetarianism. Further non-vegetarian influences became entrenched in Chettiar food habits from the late 18th Century after they established businesses in Southeast Asia. So did non-vegetarian fare from other parts of India through which they traveled en route to their overseas businesses. (according to historian S. Muthiah in the book The Bangala Table: Flavor and Recipes from Chettinad by Sumeet Nair and Meenakshi Meyyappan)

We have relished some dishes from Chettinaad cuisine at some local restaurants, but I had never eaten this particular Chettinaad mushroom dish. I was introduced to this vegetarian dish by my niece Surekha when I visited her in Chennai, India. I really love the subtle yet distinct flavor of fennel in this dish.

Chettinaad Mushrooms

Recipe

Ingredients:

24 ounce packet Mushrooms (a pound and a half)

2 large Onions chopped fine

2 tsps Ginger garlic paste (You can also use inch fresh ginger and garlic finely chopped)

4 Roma Tomatoes chopped (you can use canned tomatoes when fresh are not available)

1/2 tsp Garam masala (you can add more or less as per your taste)

1 tsp Cumin powder

2 tsps Coriander powder

1/2 tsp haldi/Turmeric powder

1//2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp kashmiri Chilli Powder (you can adjust to your spice level)

1 - 2 tablespoons Fennel seeds (depending on your palate)

1/2 cup grated Coconut

2 sprigs Curry leaves

2 tablespoons of cooking Oil of choice (coconut oil will give the best flavor)

Salt to taste

Chopped and ready to be cooked

Steps:

1. In a pan, heat some oil, and sauté onions. After some time add chopped ginger and garlic and sauté some more.

2. Add the chopped tomatoes and fry for some time.

3. Add the garam masala, coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder and chilli powders and sauté till oil separates. (You can adjust the spices according to your palate.)

4. Add in the mushrooms and cook.

5. Grind the coconut and fennel to a fine or coarse paste, and keep aside.

6. Add in the paste made with the grated coconut and fennel seeds into the pan, add the salt to taste and mix well and cook some more.

7. Lastly add in some chopped fresh curry leaves and cook through.MIx well.

8. This dish can be served as a side dish with rice, and sambhar or dhal. It can also be served with rotis/phulkas or pooris.

Notes:

• To make it more spicy, you can also add some extra black pepper to this dish for extra zing.

•This dish can also be made with chicken or crab. Just replace the mushrooms with chicken or

crab. Please adjust the spices to suit your palate.

•For Chettinaad Crab Curry, please add extra black pepper as well to give that extra zing and flavor.