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Jotaro's Food Review
KERALA HOUSEBOAT FEAST @ ALLEPPEY BACKWATERS
Houseboat, Alappuzha, Kerala, India - January 2015
We were on a holiday in Kerala, and one of the interesting highlights was a houseboat cruise along the Aryad Lake and the backwaters of Alleppey (also know as Alappuzha).
Included in the cruise package was a very good Kerala houseboat lunch, one that I will always remember as the delicious food was matched with a perfect ambience as we sailed along.
Our houseboat operated by Ben's Holiday, it looked something similar to the one shown above. The boat is fairly large, about a hundred feet long with a large living-dining room, two bedrooms each with en-suite bathrooms and a kitchen. On board were three personnel to attend to the four of us us - a pilot, a chef and a kitchen helper. A kitchen and a chef? Yes, a chef; the cruise will take four hours and there will be amble time for them to cook on board.
And we were really attended upon, the service was very good and we felt like kings sailing on the river!
But how was the food; Let's see whether it was fit for kings or not?
But first thing first, as we skirted the southern edge of the lake, we made a quick stop at a local shop selling fresh seafood; i.e. prawns, fish, etc. to pick-up for extra dishes. As fish were already included in our lunch package, we just went for the giant freshwater prawns; and these were huge! We chose four of the largest ones which came to about one kilo and paid 1,600 rupees for them which is about RM90-00. This worked out to about RM23-00 each, but it was worth it as these were really huge prawns - much, much bigger and cheaper than the freshwater prawns we had a Tanjung Tualang back home in Malaysia.
With our little marketing done, the boat veered away from the lake and headed into the backwater canals. The scenery was breath-taking with paddy fields on one side and villages on the other; the water was a very dark blue with hyacinths floating on them.
I popped into the kitchen to see how they were doing. Chef Sathian together with his assistant Sasi had already cut the fishes and seasoned them in curry spices. The prawns will be next. Not wanting a repeat of having chilli hot food like the one we had in Munnar a few days earlier, we had told them that we wanted our food less spicy, i.e. less chilli hot.
Taking a peep out of the kitchen window, I saw a house-boat with thatched roof sailing below swaying coconut palms.
The fish and prawns have been deep-fried and laid onto old newspaper to soak off the excess oil and the kitchen crew are preparing the other dishes. Lunch will be served soon so I better get back up front.
Up at the boat's bow platform the girls were sitting cross-legged admiring the scenery and local life on the canals.
We even took turns to pilot the boat... it took a while to get used to the lagging turning movements of the boat as it was slot to respond to the rudder.
LUNCH IS SERVED!
It was a good spread of deep-fried spiced fish and prawns, stir-fried spicy long-beans, chicken curry, white rice, Dahl, fresh salad presented as a lotus bloom, Cabbage Thoran; and a the top left corner some funny long reddish things. And of course there was some papadums; what is an Indian meal without them?
The fish were Karimeen, deep-fried with slits down their body, the spices has infused well into their flesh. The slits had also made the fish more crisply when fried but at the same time maintained the tenderness of the meat. We had had the same fish in Munnar, but these here were sweeter.
The long-beans were stir-fried with curry leaves, cut to about a couple of inches long with slits made laterally to remove their seed. The lateral cutting and removal of the seeds meant that they were softer when stir-fried. The spices added the flavour, while the curry leaves imparted a good aroma to the dish.
Large chunks of potatoes came with the chicken curry, the chicken was cut into fairly large pieces and their meat were tender. The curry itself was tasty with just the right amount of salt and sugar.
A thicker type of Dahl was serve; it came with small cuts of potatoes and carrots which went well with the lentils. And yes.... they did tone down the spicy chilli hotness of the dishes.
I found the next vegetable dish, the Cabbage Thoran to be more unique than the long beans. It's finely chopped cabbage stir fried together with some finely chopped onion, ginger and carrots. A sprinkling of spices had been added during the frying. It's a good Malayalam dish seldom found elsewhere.
Even a simple thing like their papadums were good. Hand-made by the kitchen staff themselves, I found them to be much better than those bought from shops. When fried they had large pockets of bubbles that made them sort of wafer thin and thus more easy to crunch into. Spicy but not overly, they were also not as salty as those shop ones.
Now comes the pièce de résistance - those giant freshwater prawns.
Slit in half along their bottoms and seasoned with spices, these were then deep-fried to perfection.
The fresh-water prawns here are really large, the largest I have seen so far.
For illustration, the plate above is about 10-inch in diameter, so you can imagine how BIG they are.
So I was not exaggerating my surprise when whacking into them!
Oh.... my..... look at that delicious looking meet, beautifully topped by spicy seasoning. It makes me salivating again looking at this photo, damn!
I always like these giant prawns, almost as large as a small lobster, their meat are nice - softer and sweeter than a lobster's. Although I think these prawns would be better if steamed or cooked in a curry; this Keralan style was tastefully good too.
And what about those long reddish things?
Hah! These were the legs of the prawns; the staff had patiently slit the legs open and extracted out the flesh to cook them!
We adjourned to the leaving room, sat down facing forwards to enjoy the atmosphere of the place and were later served these nice pineapple cutlets for desserts.
Slowly, we bit into them as the cool late afternoon breeze blew into our faces.
Our cruise went on and we were amazed by the number of house-boats sailing along the canals. They slowly lumbered on as their passengers, like us, relaxed in the idyll setting.
A couple of hours later, for tea, we were served good Masala tea together with deep-fried banana fritters.
It was a pleasant ending to a beautiful cruise with a kingly feast.
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