Kuzhimanthi

O ne of Kerala’s favourite dishes, Kuzhimanthi is a type of biryani with origins in a Yemeni rice dish called mandi, but tweaked to suit Indian taste buds. The Yemini dish is normally cooked with lamb and flavoured with lamb stock, while the Kuzhimanthi uses chicken. The Yemini version is also spiced lesser than its Indian counterpart, and is served with tzatziki, a kind of cucumber raita.

Although often understood as a biryani, Kuzhimanthi is a mandi, a dish prepared with flavoured rice and meat. Mandi originates from the Arabic word ‘nada’ which means dewy, referencing the softness of the meat of a mandi. Kuzhy is a Malayalam word referring to the pit in which the dish is cooked. Combining the two words gives one the unique Kuzhimanthi.

The rice in a Kuzhimanthi is spiced and then slow-cooked in a deep pit in the ground. The chicken is cooked atop it, leading to its juices dripping into the rice and flavouring it further. The pit cooking method recalls travellers of the Arabian desert. With strong winds blowing throughout the day, the only way those travellers could cook was by making a hole in the ground, a tradition continued in the cooking of the dish today.

The dish was seemingly brought to India by chef Ashraf Ali in 2006, who lived in Saudi Arabia for several years, and then returned to Kerala, including the dish on the menu of his restaurant. From being an iftar staple of the Mappila community, Kuzhimanthi has grown to become a must-taste for everyone visiting the Malabar region.