Traditional recipes

Peppery rice and moong dal tempered in ghee. Its sweet twin is cooked in a new pot on Thai Pongal.

Rice and moong dal cooked with jaggery, ghee, cardamom and cashews, the sweet pongal offered to the Sun on Thai Pongal.

Toor dal and vegetables simmered in tamarind with a freshly roasted and ground spice and coconut paste, the everyday heart of a Tamil meal.

A thin, peppery tamarind broth with cumin and garlic, drunk as a soup or poured over rice, and the home remedy for colds.

A thick, tangy tamarind gravy made with sun-dried vegetable or berry vathal, cooked in gingelly oil and eaten with hot rice.

Sour buttermilk simmered with a ground coconut, chilli and cumin paste and vegetables such as ash gourd or okra.

Greens such as amaranth cooked soft, mashed and tempered simply, a daily dish of Tamil homes.

A thick, crisp pancake of soaked and ground rice and mixed lentils, often served with avial or jaggery.

Round, crisp-shelled dumplings made from idli batter in a dimpled cast-iron pan, a Chettinad favourite.

Crisp, doughnut-shaped fritters of whipped urad dal, served with sambar and chutney or offered at festivals.

A spiced temple idli flavoured with pepper, cumin, ginger and ghee, traditionally made as an offering in Kanchipuram's Vishnu temple.

A mild, creamy side dish of moong dal, potato and a ground coconut, fennel and poppy seed paste, served with idli and dosai.

A light coconut-milk stew of vegetables and moong dal finished with lime, served with rice and ginger chutney.

Rice tossed in a thick, spiced tamarind paste with peanuts and sesame, a temple offering and travel food.

Soft rice mixed with curd and tempered with mustard, ginger and curry leaves, the cooling last course of a Tamil meal.

Turmeric-yellow rice with lime juice, peanuts and a crunchy dal tempering, packed for journeys and festivals.

A one-pot dish of rice and toor dal with shallots, garlic and spices, the signature home meal of the Kongu region around Coimbatore.

A mutton biryani of short-grain seeraga samba rice cooked with meat, mint and a red chilli paste, from the town of Ambur.

A fiery chicken curry built on freshly roasted spices such as pepper, fennel, star anise and kalpasi, from the Chettiar homes of Karaikudi.

A dry chicken fry with shallots, dried red chillies, turmeric and thin slivers of coconut, from the Kongu town of Pallipalayam.

Tender mutton pieces cooked dry with shallots, pepper and curry leaves, a specialty of Madurai's eateries.

Crisp fried balls of minced mutton, roasted gram, coconut and spices, a Chettinad party dish.

Shredded flaky parotta chopped on a hot griddle with egg, onion, tomato and salna, with the loud clang of two steel blades.

Slices of seer fish marinated in chilli, turmeric, ginger-garlic and lime and shallow-fried crisp.

A soothing rice and lentil porridge with spices, coconut milk and minced meat, cooked in mosques of Tamil Nadu to break the Ramzan fast.

Dark, chewy-soft fried discs of rice flour and jaggery syrup with cardamom, made for Deepavali and weddings.

Puffed rice bound with jaggery syrup, coconut bits and cardamom into balls, made for the festival of lamps, Karthigai Deepam.

Rice cooked slowly in milk with jaggery and plenty of ghee, the temple sweet of Margazhi and the Andal tradition.

A soft, creamy milk sweet made by slowly reducing milk with sugar, a GI-tagged speciality of Srivilliputhur.

A glossy, wobbly halwa made from wheat milk, sugar and ghee, cooked for hours, the famous sweet of Tirunelveli.

A crunchy peanut and jaggery candy from Kovilpatti, which holds a GI tag.

A deep purple sweet of black rice cooked soft and mixed with sugar, coconut and ghee, served at Chettinad weddings.

Small, cone-shaped cashew and egg-white meringues, crisp outside and chewy inside, from the port town of Thoothukudi.

Crisp spirals of rice flour and urad dal flour with cumin and sesame, the famous savoury snack of Manapparai.

Roasted foxtail millet flour mixed with honey, the simple offering linked with Lord Murugan and the hill people of ancient Tamil land.

Fermented pearl millet porridge thinned with buttermilk and eaten with shallots and chilli, the cooling summer drink of rural Tamil Nadu.

A chilled drink of reduced milk, almond gum, nannari syrup and ice cream, the famous cooler of Madurai.

Strong coffee decoction dripped through a brass or steel filter, mixed with frothy hot milk and sugar and poured between a tumbler and dabarah.

Thin buttermilk with ginger, green chilli, curry leaves and lime, given free to passers-by in summer.

Whole baby mangoes cured in salt, chilli and mustard, the tangy pickle eaten with curd rice.

A coarse powder of roasted lentils, red chillies and sesame, mixed with gingelly oil to eat with idli and dosai.