Breakfast Staple · Steamed Rice Cylinder
Puttu & Kadala Curry
Photo: Jackson John 10 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
In a Tamil legend retold in the Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam, Lord Shiva disguised himself as a laborer to help an elderly puttu seller and asked to be paid in puttu — an episode Madurai's temples still celebrate.
Ground rice is layered with grated coconut inside a perforated cylindrical steamer and cooked over boiling water until it sets into a soft, crumbly log. It's tipped out onto a plate and served with a spiced black chickpea curry, ripe banana, or a meat stew, sold hot from breakfast stalls across Kerala.
Why it's made this way: Puttu is eaten across Kerala and Tamil Nadu and appears in Tamil devotional literature, and in Kerala its steam-cylinder method paired with kadala curry has become the standard morning plate, sold from tea shops the moment they open.
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