Chettinad cuisine

Chettinad cuisine is the cuisine of a community called the Nattukotai Chettiars, or Nagarathars, from the Chettinad region in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu state in India. Chettinad cuisine is perhaps the most renowned fare in the Tamil Nadu repertoire. It uses a variety of spices and the dishes are made with fresh ground masalas. Chettiars also use a variety of sun-dried meats and salted vegetables, reflecting the dry environment of the region. Most of the dishes are eaten with rice and rice based accompaniments such as dosas, appams, idiyappams, adais and idlis. The Chettiars, through their mercantile contacts with Burma, learnt to prepare a type of rice pudding made with sticky red rice. The chefs of manapatti village near Singampunari are experts in cooking Chettinad cuisine. They always used to cook in bulk orders for marriage functions, political functions, etc. though manapatti cooking is portrayed as madurai cuisine because it is located near to madurai district, it comes under chettinad cuisine only and it also comes under the chettinad region of sivagangai district. The entire village people is famous in the art of cooking.

Chettinad cuisine offers a variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Some of the popular vegetarian dishes include idiyappam, paniyaram, vellai paniyaram, karuppatti paniyaram, paal paniyaram, kuzhi paniyaram, kozhukatta, masala paniyaram, aadikoozh, kandharappam, seeyam, masala seeyam, kavuni arisi, maavurundai, and athirasam. In Chettinad food, major spices used include anasipoo (star aniseed), kalpasi (a lichen), puli (tamarind), milagai (chillies), sombu (fennel seed), pattai (cinnamon), lavangam (cloves), punnai ilai (bay leaf), karu milagu (peppercorn), jeeragam (cumin seeds), and venthayam (fenugreek).