Close your eyes and think of Indian curry, and it’s very likely that a rich orange-red sauce will come to mind, like fiery chicken tikka masala; or a thick green sauce that forms the base of popular dishes like saag paneer or chicken hariyali.
But far from these dishes originating in the northern Indian state of Punjab – both in terms of geography and flavors – lies Kerala. ishtu from the deep south. Ishtu, a variation of the English word stew, is a mild, creamy, pale dish made with seasonal vegetables and flavored with just a hint of spices. It is a hearty dish that can be prepared in less than 30 minutes and is found in home cooking as well as in restaurants serving Kerala cuisine.
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Kerala has always been India’s fertile ground for spice cultivation, bringing everyone from Arabs and Chinese to the Portuguese and Dutch – and then the British – to this part of the country for many centuries. While the legacy of all these arrivals lives on in art and architecture, it is in food that the influence of these colonizers remains strongest.
In many parts of India, where British stew has been adapted to suit local palates, meat forms the backbone of the dish, with the stew thickened with yogurt or ghee. Kerala ishtu, however, can be made with or without meat – either using beef or lamb, or simply a mix of vegetables – and gets its unique flavor and body from coconut milk.
Physician and food writer Nandita Iyer shares a recipe for vegetarian ishtu from Kerala in her book The Great Indian Thali: Seasonal Vegetarian Wholesomeness, published October 2022. Literally meaning “platter” or “plate”, the thali is a unique Indian concept that brings together several dishes (usually from a specific region or around a theme) to create a healthy meal.
Speaking about the inspiration for this book, Iyer said that a thali makes us look at food as an amalgam of nutrients, rather than separate ingredients. “In Indian cuisine, the concept of a meal does not exist. We tend to eat everything together – with carbohydrates like rice or roti as the main star, and lentils, vegetables, meat and everything else in a secondary role. It’s super flexible and can hold just three dishes or 20 dishes,” she explained.