Vivek Singh’s Indian Festival Feasts

Christianity had been in existence in India much before the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. It is believed that Saint Thomas – one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ – introduced Christianity to India around the first century. Today, Christianity is the third largest religion in India and is mainly concentrated in south and north-east India, and particularly in Kerala which is home to the Saint Thomas Christian community.

In comparison with other festivals, Christmas is quite a small occasion in India. This is due to the percentage of Indians who are Christians (about 2.3 per cent) compared to those who belong to other religions (Hinduism makes up nearly 80 per cent and Islam around 14 per cent). Nevertheless, the population of India is over 1 billion, so there are over 25 million Christians in India, and Christmas is a national holiday. One of the largest Indian urban Christian communities is in Mumbai, most of whom are Roman Catholic, and today what we see is an Indian adaptation of the western Christmas celebration.

Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve (24^th December) plays a significant part in the Christmas traditions in India, especially for Catholics. Families often walk to Mass together and a feast with family and friends follows, as well as the giving and receiving of gifts. After the service, the church bells ring to announce that Christmas Day has arrived.

Most Christian families display a nativity scene featuring clay figures – everyone wants to have the best nativity scene, and Mumbai is famous for its lavish scenes. Churches are decorated with poinsettia flowers and candles illuminate the Midnight Mass services. Lights are central to the festival, and streets in southern India are lit up, as Christians place small oil-burning clay lamps on the flat roofs of their homes.

Some of the most vibrant Christmas celebrations can be seen in Goa, where over a quarter of the state’s population are Christian, and of those most are Catholic. Goa flaunts its culture to its best during Christmas time; it’s a party and a spectacle for both locals and international tourists, with the beaches playing host to an array of music, dance and celebrations taking place throughout the festivities.

Goans have incorporated many western customs into their Christmas celebrations, most likely as a result of Goa’s historical connections with Portugal. Carol singing in your neighbourhood in the run-up to Christmas is not uncommon, as well as decorated Christmas trees – some families even use banana or mango trees! On Christmas Eve Christians in Goa hang giant star-shaped paper lanterns between the houses so that the stars float above you as you walk down the road.

Christians light candles on Christmas Eve in New Delhi. (Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times via Getty)

People shop for Christmas decorations, such as candy canes, Santa decorations, bells, wreaths and ornamental baubles. (Jasjeet Plaha/Hindustan Times via Getty)

Beyond the Christmas merrymaking, as with all Indian festivals, food plays a central role. On Christmas morning a lavish brunch is often enjoyed, often featuring an array of dishes from mutton curry and chicken stew to a traditional roast, fish curries and steamed rice cakes, and of course several sweet treats. Lots of sweet treats are eaten at Christmas time in India, and one of my favourites is a rich Christmas fruit cake. Families often make sweets together to share with their friends and neighbours, and it doesn’t matter if neighbours are Hindu, Christian or Muslim – all are given some goodies and are wished a happy Christmas!

Growing up in Asansol in West Bengal, Christmas was a big festival that we looked forward to with much anticipation. With a long holiday from school and plenty of time for revelling with friends, my childhood memories are based around Christmas Day, and all the indulgence in cakes and sweets.

For this book, I have mainly focused on Christmas dishes from Kerala where an ancient Christian community resides, as they have some of the most fascinating cross-cultural cooking. One might say that Christmas in India has been particularly influenced by western traditions, but nevertheless it is an occasion for reunions with family and friends, and the spirit and joy around the festival link back to the culture and traditions of the place where it is being celebrated.

Top left: Ishtew
Bottom left: Meen Kudampuli Curry
Top right: Appams
Bottom right and far right: Hans Mappas

These puff pastry parcels are relatively quick to make and very versatile as far as fillings go. You can fill these with halved boiled eggs, a spicy shrimp filling or just a regular dosa filling of vegetables. These are a great snack to offer to kids at festivals and are frequently seen on Christmas menus when feeding large families.

Place the chicken thighs in a roasting dish, sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of the salt, 1 teaspoon of the red chilli powder and 1 tablespoon of the oil, and roast in the preheated oven for 15–20 minutes until cooked through and the juices run clear. Alternatively, place in a pan with 150ml of water and bring to the boil, then simmer, covered, for 15–20 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the water is almost absorbed. Cool and shred the chicken, reserving any leftover juices.

Heat the remaining oil in a separate pan. Add the cinnamon stick and let it infuse for 30 seconds, then add the curry leaves and sliced onions and cook for 5–6 minutes until the onion is translucent. Next add the ginger-garlic paste and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the remaining salt and chilli powder, plus the turmeric and garam masala, and sauté for another minute or two. Add the shredded chicken and mix until well combined. Add the coarsely crushed peppercorns, chopped green chillies, chopped ginger and any reserved cooking juices and mix well. Finish with a squeeze of lime juice. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool.

Turn the oven down to 170ºC/150ºC Fan/Gas Mark 3½. Line a baking tray with baking parchment or grease with oil or butter.

Unroll the puff pastry sheets (if using a block of puff pastry, roll out to approximately 3–4mm thick). Cut into 7.5cm squares. Brush the edges of the pastry with water or egg wash and place a tablespoon of the filling in the centre. Fold in the pastry edges to make a triangular or rectangular shape and gently press down on the pastry edges to seal the parcel.

Once all the puffs are made, brush the tops with the remaining egg and sprinkle fennel seeds on top. Arrange the puffs on the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 12–14 minutes or until they are golden brown and crisp.

This stew is served in Syrian-Christian households in Kerala for breakfast and is a firm favourite at the Christmas table. Traditionally served with appams (fermented rice batter pancakes cooked in a heavy iron wok), it can also be accompanied by rice vermicelli or plain rice. Fiddly as they may be, appams have thin, crisp sides, soft fluffy centres and look beautiful as they take the shape of the wok they are cooked in.

You could use boned chicken in this recipe if you wish, but chicken on the bone provides much more flavour. If using boned chicken, use just the thighs and cook them slowly and long for a great result and depth of flavour.

5 tablespoons toddy (palm) vinegar (substitute with sherry vinegar or sweet white wine vinegar if you can’t find toddy)

To cook the chicken, heat the oil in a pan, add the cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, followed by the garlic, ginger, onions, chillies and curry leaves and cook over a medium heat until the onions are soft. Add the chicken, salt and pepper and stir for 1 minute. Stir in the coconut milk and 125ml of water, reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.

While the chicken stew is cooking, prepare the sweet and sour rice. Heat the oil in a pan, add the star anise, cardamom and bay leaves and stir for 30 seconds or so until they release the flavours into the oil. Add the onion, curry leaves, salt and sugar and cook until the onions are translucent. Add the vinegar, coconut milk and 300ml of water and then the drained rice. Mix well and stir for 5 minutes or so over a medium heat, then lower the heat, cover the pan with a tightly fitting lid and cook the rice for another 7–8 minutes. All the liquid should be absorbed by this stage. Remove the lid, stir the rice to open the grains, cover with the lid again and set aside for another 10 minutes to finish cooking in its own steam.

When the chicken is cooked through, add the vinegar to the stew, sprinkle over the garam masala and mix well. Remove from the heat and serve with sweet and sour rice.

It’s the use of kokum berries (black mangosteen) that gives this dish a distinct sourness that is noticeably different than if you used tamarind or lemon juice, and makes this dish so unique. If you can’t find kokum, which is available online, fear not, just substitute with tamarind or lemon juice if necessary. If you wish you could also use boneless filleted fish, but I find using darnes on the bone keeps the fish moist and creates beautiful form on the plate.

Place the fish in a bowl. Mix the salt into the oil, sprinkle in the peppercorns, green chilli and fennel seeds and pour over the fish. Set aside to marinate for 10–15 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the sauce. Heat the oil in a deep pan, add the fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds and let them crackle and pop for 20–30 seconds, then add the curry leaves and onions, and sauté for 6–7 minutes or until the onions turn pink. Add the red chilli powder and cook further for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes with the kokum berries and cook until the tomatoes cook off and are almost dry. Add the coconut milk and simmer for 3–4 minutes, until it begins to thicken. When the sauce thickens, add the fish stock to thin it, bring to the boil and reduce to a flowing consistency. Add the salt, check the consistency and finish with a squeeze of lime.

To cook the fish, heat some oil in a flat-based pan, sear the fish darnes for 2–3 minutes on each side, cooking them until they are crisp. Pour the sauce on to 4 serving plates, place the fish on top and serve.

This crisp fried masala fish can easily be the centrepiece at pretty much any celebration, but it is often seen at the Christmas table. Mackerel is good for this dish as it handles the spices well, but in Kerala they can use pomfret or pearl spot. Here in the UK, feel free to try this dish with sea bass or sea bream if you aren’t too fond of mackerel.

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together. Slash the fish 2 or 3 times on each side with a sharp knife and rub in the marinade. Set aside for 20 minutes.

For the sauce, heat the oil in a pan, add the mustard seeds and curry leaves and when they start to crackle, add the onion, ginger, green chillies and salt and cook until the onions are soft. Add the turmeric and stir for 1 minute. Pour in the coconut milk and simmer over a low heat until the sauce thickens to the consistency of double cream. Remove from the heat.

To fry the fish, heat the oil in a wok or deep pan large enough for the fish to fit in. Deep fry the fish in medium-hot oil for about 10–15 minutes, turning them over occasionally to cook all sides, until cooked through and crisp on the outside. Remove gently and place on kitchen paper to remove the excess oil.

Squeeze the lime juice over the fish and serve it with the moilee sauce and steamed rice or green salad as accompaniments.

At Christmas many Christian families roast goose breast and serve it with its own juices deglazed with a little vinegar. Feel free to substitute duck breasts or even large chicken breasts with the skin on.

Finely grind all the marinade ingredients together and rub the goose breasts with the mixture. Take care to rub the spices into the incisions made on the skin side of the breasts too. Set aside for 30 minutes.

To make the sauce, heat the oil in a pan, add the ginger, curry leaves and onion and sauté over a medium heat for 4–5 minutes until soft. Add the green chillies, turmeric and coriander and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the stock, vinegar and salt and simmer for 5–6 minutes. Add the garam masala and coconut milk and simmer until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in an ovenproof, heavy-based frying pan and sear the goose breasts on the skin side over a medium heat for 6–8 minutes until the skin is crisp and much of the fat is rendered down in the pan. Turn over and sear the second side for a couple of minutes, then place in the preheated oven for 3–4 minutes, then remove and rest for 5 minutes.

Slice and serve the goose breast with the sauce and Podimas-style roasted new potatoes.

This is inspired by a traditional Kerala toddy shop favourite, beef chukka – a double-cooked beef dish where strips from chuck of beef, or topside or skirt, are first braised, then stir fried with onions, curry leaves and more spices to make an excellent accompaniment to drinks. This version uses a better cut as it’s a family celebration, and the meat tastes much better being simply grilled and folded in with the masala, rather than braised.

To make the spice mix, dry roast all the spices in a pan for 1 minute or so until they smell fragrant, then crush them coarsely using a mortar and pestle. Sprinkle 2 pinches of the coarse spice mix on each side of the steak and set aside for 5 minutes.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a frying pan or griddle pan over a medium-high heat, then sear the steak over a high heat on one side for 2–3 minutes without moving it in the pan. Turn over and cook the other side for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to rest for 5 minutes.

While the meat is resting, into another frying pan add the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil and heat to medium, then add the ginger, garlic, green chillies, curry leaves and onions. After 30 seconds or so, increase the heat to high and sauté for a couple of minutes until the onions have softened. Sprinkle in the remaining ground spice mix, salt and sugar and stir fry for another 2 minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium, stir in the coconut milk and continue cooking until the liquid has reduced by half. Slice the seared steak into strips 1cm wide and add back in the pan. Scatter over the chopped coriander and squeeze in the lime juice. Mix the onion masala well to coat the sliced steak and serve immediately.

This recipe uses yeast to make the pancakes spongy and delicious. In Kerala they are known as appams, whereas in Sri Lanka they are called hoppers. The vessel they are cooked in is typical to the area – a small, wok-shaped kadhai that has a round bottom. When the batter is spooned into the hot wok, it is swirled around in circular motion and forms a thin coating. When the pan is returned to the heat, the batter settles down in the centre of the pan, forming a thick, pillowy centre with crisp, thin edges. This duality of texture is the beauty of appams.

Wash the rice in a couple of changes of water, then soak it in a bowl of water for 1½ hours, then drain.

Reserve 235ml of the coconut milk and set aside. Add the remaining coconut milk to the drained rice and grind to a smooth paste (you can use a wet grinder or a blender/food processor).

Once the rice mixture is smooth, place 2 tablespoons of it in a pan with the reserved coconut milk and add 235ml of water. Bring this mixture to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and let it thicken into a paste, stirring continuously. Let it cool down completely.

Once that mixture is completely cooled, add it to the ground rice flour mixture in the food processor along with the yeast and grind for another couple minutes. Transfer the resulting batter to a bowl, cover with clingfilm and let it ferment at room temperature (26–32ºC) for about 4 hours, then refrigerate until you need it.

When ready to cook the appam, take the bowl out of the fridge and add the sugar and salt straight away. Mix the batter using a whisk or a paddle spoon – this helps to mix the salt and sugar evenly as well as aerating the batter and quickly bringing it to room temperature. If the batter is too thick to spread, add a little water to bring it to the right consistency (aim for the consistency of single cream) and let it come to room temperature before use.

Appam batter should be quite flowing so that when you use the swirling technique during cooking, the edges are light and crisp. If your batter is thicker, you get appams of more uniform thickness and sponginess. There’s no need to flip them. Keep the heat medium-low at all times. If you don’t have an appam kadhai to hand, you can simply pour a ladleful of the batter into a frying pan or omelette pan oiled with a teaspoon of vegetable oil and cook like a flat pancake – they taste just as good.

Serve warm, with Suriani chicken stew or a similar dish. This quantity will make a stack of appams, to be shared among 4 people.

These are like the filling you find inside dosa pancakes, but instead of being crushed or mashed the new potatoes are left whole or cut into marble-sized pieces. Think of these as curried roast potatoes, but the potatoes are first boiled in the skin then peeled, as this gives a richer texture to the podimas rather than boiling them after peeling.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Add the potatoes and simmer for about 12–15 minutes or until tender. Drain well and set aside.

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and set aside. They need to be marble sized so cut them into two if they are very large.

For the tempering, heat the oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan to smoking point and add all the tempering ingredients. When the seeds crackle and the curry leaves crisp up, add the red onion and cook over a medium heat for 3–4 minutes stirring continuously. Next add the asafoetida, green chillies, ginger, turmeric and salt and stir over a high heat for 30 seconds. Add the potatoes and stir to mix the tempering evenly through the potatoes. Cook for another 2–3 minutes, then sprinkle over the coriander and finish with lemon juice.

This kheer is unusual owing to the jewel-like appearance of tapioca pearls and the refreshing use of pineapple. It tastes just as good in its vegan version which omits the sweetened condensed milk, replacing it with coconut milk and sugar.

Drain the sago pearls, transfer to a pan, add 475ml of water and simmer for about 15 minutes until they start to become translucent. Add a little more hot water if the mixture is too thick. Now add the pineapple and sugar and simmer for another 15–20 minutes until the pineapple is tender. Add the coconut milk and condensed milk and simmer for about 5 minutes until the mixture thickens again. Stir in the cardamom and ginger and remove from the heat.

Heat the ghee in a small frying pan, add the cashew nuts followed by the raisins and fry until the cashew nuts are golden brown in colour. Add to the payasam and mix well.

Left: Mackerel Moilee
Middle: Puff
Right: Sabudana aur Ananas Payasam

Unlike the traditional western Christmas pudding, this is a much lighter, cake version that is delicious served on its own or with custard. I find the spices are much better expressed in this cake than in a traditional Christmas pudding where they get too cloyingly intense as the texture is much denser and the fruit closely packed. Give this a go!

If you wish to soak the dried fruits in the rum or brandy, place them in a bowl and set aside for 2 hours (or overnight).

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160ºC Fan/Gas Mark 4. Grease a round 25cm diameter cake tin.

To prepare the caramel syrup, heat the sugar in a pan until the sugar melts and turns a dark brown colour. Mix with a wooden spoon to even out the colouring, then carefully pour 75ml of water into it and mix in well. The liquid is very dark and close to burnt (it’s referred to by some pastry chefs as Black Jack and used to impart a very dark colour to cakes/sponges). Remove the liquid from the heat and set aside to cool.

Sift the plain flour with the baking powder and set aside. Grind the whole spices to a fine powder.

Cream the caster sugar and butter together for 5–7 minutes to incorporate all the sugar into the butter and get the mixture light and fluffy. Add the eggs into it one by one and mix well between adding each egg. Add the vanilla extract and cooled caramel syrup, followed by the powdered spices and flour. Finally, add the dried fruit and candied peel and fold in slowly (adding the fruit last ensures that no pockets with lumps of flour are formed).

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and decorate the top with cashew nuts. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 165ºC/145ºC Fan/Gas Mark 3 and bake for a further 45 minutes or until a knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let it cool well before cutting.

Thalasseri Bakery Special

A traditional Indian bride on her wedding day: the henna, the garlands and the bangles are all important elements. (Antara Sarkar/Getty)