Traditional recipes

Finger-millet balls, the strength food of rural Karnataka. Shree Anna on a plate.

‘Hot lentil rice’: rice and toor dal cooked with vegetables, tamarind and a freshly roasted spice powder, finished with ghee.

A crisp dosa spread with a red garlic-and-chilli chutney and filled with a soft potato palya, served with coconut chutney.

Soft steamed cakes of semolina and curd tempered with mustard, cashews and curry leaves, a Bengaluru breakfast that needs no fermenting.

Rice-flour flatbread mixed with onion, dill, coconut and green chillies, patted out by hand on a griddle.

Thin, crisp flatbreads of jowar (sorghum) flour patted out by hand, the daily bread of north Karnataka.

Small brinjals stuffed with a roasted peanut, sesame, coconut and spice paste and cooked in oil, the classic partner of jolada rotti.

Soft, lacy ‘water dosas’ made from a thin batter of soaked rice, with no fermenting, from the Tulu coast.

Spicy Mangalorean chicken curry in coconut milk poured over crisp, dry rice wafers, a famous dish of the Tulu coast.

Mackerel cooked in a sour and fiery paste of tamarind and red chillies, a staple fish dish of Mangaluru homes.

Dark, tangy pork curry of Kodagu, flavoured with roasted spices and kachampuli, the black vinegar of the Malabar tamarind.

Steamed balls of broken rice, soft inside, eaten with pandi curry or chicken curry in Kodagu.

A rich sweet of gram flour, ghee and sugar, either soft and melting or porous and firm, named after the city of Mysuru.

A grainy, caramel-brown milk sweet of Dharwad, made by slowly cooking milk solids with sugar and coated with fine sugar.

Thin sweet flatbread stuffed with coconut and jaggery, cooked on a griddle and served with ghee or milk, made for Ugadi and other festivals.

Flaky, layered fried pastry rounds dusted with sugar or soaked in almond milk, a traditional wedding sweet of Karnataka.

Soft, slightly sweet fried puris made from ripe banana and flour, eaten for breakfast or tea in Udupi and Mangaluru.

Soft, fluffy fritters of maida and curd flavoured with ginger, green chillies and coconut, a teatime snack of Mangaluru.

A crisp, flat fritter of rice flour, semolina and maida with onion and curry leaves, named after the town of Maddur in Mandya district.

A gentle curry of vegetables simmered in spiced buttermilk thickened with a ground coconut paste, eaten with rice.

Rice tossed with lemon juice, turmeric and a crunchy tempering of peanuts, dals, chillies and curry leaves.

Rice cooked with brinjals and a roasted spice powder of dals, coriander, chillies and coconut, a lunch-box favourite of Karnataka.

A fresh salad of soaked moong dal with cucumber, carrot, coconut and lemon, served at festivals and weddings in Karnataka.

A mix of roasted sesame, peanuts, dry coconut, roasted gram and jaggery that families exchange on Makara Sankranti.

A Bengaluru breakfast plate pairing savoury vegetable semolina upma (khara bath) with sweet saffron semolina (kesari bath).

Large, flat, plate-sized idlis steamed on round plates, served with butter, chutney and podi along the Bengaluru–Mysuru road.

Small, thick butter dosas that are crisp outside and soft inside, served with coconut chutney and potato palya in Davanagere.

A tangy puffed-rice snack of Hubballi-Dharwad, tossed with an onion-tomato-tamarind masala and topped with fried gram flour sev.

A thin, cooling porridge of finger millet flour cooked in water and mixed with buttermilk, salt and onion, drunk in the summer heat.

A warm drink of roasted coriander, cumin, pepper and dry ginger boiled with jaggery and milk, drunk in many Karnataka homes in place of coffee.

A dry, nutty chutney powder of roasted niger seeds, garlic and chilli, eaten with jolada rotti in north Karnataka.

Colocasia leaves layered with a spiced rice and coconut paste, rolled, steamed and sliced, a monsoon dish of coastal Karnataka.

Chicken coated in a fiery red masala of roasted byadgi chillies and spices, cooked down in plenty of ghee, from Kundapura and Mangaluru.

A thin, spicy curry of free-range country chicken with coconut and roasted spices, eaten with ragi mudde in southern Karnataka.

A green-masala biryani of short-grain rice and mutton or chicken, served in cups made of areca palm leaves (donne) in Bengaluru’s military hotels.

A dense, chewy sweet of edible gum, dry fruits, coconut and jaggery cooked in ghee, a speciality of Gokak in Belagavi district.

A rich, grainy brown milk sweet of Belagavi made by slowly cooking milk with curd and caramelised sugar.

A prized pickle of whole baby mangoes cured in brine and mustard-chilli masala, made from fragrant wild mango varieties of the Malnad forests.