The main focus of Christmas is enjoying a variety of delectable delicacies with our near and dear ones. And with almost one week until the holiday, most of us have even begun making preparations! Everything for the holidays is ready to go, from shopping for presents to putting up the tree.
Holiday feasts vary from culture to culture, but several staples are included in every celebration of Christmas. Many memories are associated with the meals we discuss because they have been made across many homes for years. Cookies made with gingerbread, for instance, are only made over the holiday season.
What's more? You can easily book these Christmas-special delicacies for train journeys in India through e-catering or online food on track services.
Top 7 Indian Christmas Dishes
Indian Christmas fare is easily distinguishable thanks to its unique fusion of indigenous practices and Western seasonings. Traditional non-vegetarian Indian cuisine relies heavily on meat as its primary ingredient.
Let's review some of India’s most well-known Christmas dishes:
Palappam
Also called rice hoppers, Palappam is a type of bread that is thin and golden on the outside and light and airy in the middle. Made from rice flour, it tastes like a blend of sweet toddy and coconut milk. Baking soda is used in place of toddy because it is more readily available than toddy. However, the resulting beverage tastes nothing like the traditional version.
With rice and coconut milk in its composition, this dish might go sour if left out of the fridge for too long. Motte appam, in which an egg is cracked atop the appam and dusted with freshly ground pepper and salt, is a popular dish among youngsters. The simplest variant is freshly prepared coconut milk and a touch of palm sugar or honey.
Palappam pairs well with spicy curries because of its slightly sweet flavour. Traditional preparation requires a special cast-iron skillet known as an appam chatti. It is typically served for breakfast and goes well with a gently spicy sauce enhanced with coconut. Spicy fish curry is another possible accompaniment.
Vindaloo Pork
This dish, a Goan spin on classic Indian meals, may be found at Indian restaurants worldwide. Spicy and flavorful sauce with a tomato base and entire spices; the vinegar adds a sour finish. For authentic flavour, coconut vinegar is produced by fermenting coconut palm sap. In its early stages of fermentation, palm sap is sometimes drunk as a wine-like beverage known as "toddy".
This unusual addition adds a robust earthy and umami flavour to the dish. The pork is par-cooked until it’s tender, and then the fat is added along with the pork to the curry. The fat is rendered, and the tomatoes are caramelised, giving this dish a flavour profile. You’ll finish your plate clean if you serve it with hot rice or appams.
The curry has a rich and fatty texture when cooked in a huge pot and reheated over 2 to 3 days.
Meen Molee
With roots in the Malacca Straits, this dish is a fusion of Portuguese and Indian flavours and techniques. Europeans, used to more subdued flavours, found the Indians' extensive use of pepper a bit excessive. Tempting coconut was introduced to Indian Christian cooking when commercial coconut production spread across the peninsula.
The traditional fish curry in Kerala is made with a mixture of sour cambodge, fiery black pepper, and lots of red chillies. A blend of creamy coconut milk essence creates a gentler variant suitable for colonial palates. This heralded the advent of the subcontinent’s most celebrated fish curry.
The Malay tradition of adding coconut milk to most of their stews is said to have inspired this famous recipe. It goes great with rice hoppers, appams, string hoppers, or idiyappam.
Mappas Tharavu
The Malayalam term for duck is Tharavu. This traditional Christian holiday dish is served in Syria at Easter and Christmas. It originally came from one of the gorgeous parts of the country, where there are winding backwaters, coconut palm-filled fields, green, never-ending rows of paddy, and abundant reserves of seafood.
Raising ducks is a common family practice that pays off by providing access to a year’s worth of the most flavorful and tender duck meat. It’s a speciality of Kerala’s backwaters and can be cooked in various ways. This curry is a slightly spiced dish with rich coconut milk and a sweet blend of tomatoes. The addition of potatoes makes for a velvety consistency. This mouthwatering coastal recipe contains many different spices, including chilli powder, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, and turmeric.
Tharavu Roast
Traditional Christian wedding dinners often feature a duck roast as a special occasion. The meat is sliced into moderately large chunks and roasted in a broad, shallow pot called a urali. Among the components are coconut oil, curry leaves, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and shallots. While cooking at a low temperature, the meat is swirled in a spicy and aromatic blend of toasted and ground spices.
This is an excellent starter dish and one of the most preferred ones. Unlike the chicken, the duck is tender and has an earthy flavour. The duck is taken to a new level of deliciousness thanks to some strategic usage of coconut oil.
Mutton Cutlet
These cutlets, also known as kheema croquettes, are a popular snack in Kerala and can be found at most tea cafes. The cutlets, which are breaded and deep-fried, can be made using many different types of meat. Patties made with minced mutton or lamb, onions, chillies, ginger, garlic, and potatoes are dipped in an egg wash, breaded, and shallow-fried.
The exterior is crunchy and snappy, while the interior is velvety and satisfying. Tomato ketchup has become the standard condiment to accompany them. You may swap either chicken or fish for beef, and you’ll have some tasty appetisers.
Mutton Stew
This meal, affectionately known as "Ishtew," is prepared with lamb or mutton and presented as a light, aromatic, and flavorful breakfast dish alongside a rice hopper. To produce this softly flavoured, rich dish, carrots, green peas, beans, and whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves are blended. It is the dish of choice for a leisurely breakfast after attending church on a Sunday, and it is especially delicious when topped with freshly powdered and squeezed coconut milk.
The gentle flavours of this soup go well with the delicate lamb, but when using gamey mutton, it may need a little more time on the fire. You can swap the lamb for chicken, but keep in mind that chicken with the skin on will give more juiciness and a fuller flavour to the otherwise delicate stew. The main flavours are ginger and coconut milk, with traces of sweetness from the entire spices.
Across the world, including India, Christmas is the most eagerly anticipated holiday. This holiday also features delicious feasts, lit-up decorations, and Christmas trees. These Indian Christmas feasts are so popular that you may consider ordering them on upcoming train trips.
Order and enjoy your favourite dishes on train trips across India this Holiday Season from an extensive selection of delectable cuisines on the Food on Track app. Install this food delivery app from the Play Store to explore its IRCTC-authorised online food track service.
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Food On Track
Food on Track is a dedicated app for food delivery in service in train. Passengers traveling by train and craving tasty and hygienic food on the train can download the food on track app and order the best restaurant-style food for their train journey