Meen Idi Ada – Traditional Lakshadweep Fish Ada Recipe | Seafood Specialty

Lakshadweep Cuisine is predominantly seafood, and we can find a wide range of staple dishes made from fish and other sea creatures such as crab, starfish etc. Many of their common food ingredients are deeply influenced by Kerala culture; rice, coconut and fish, to mention a few. They have many rice-based staple foods. Here I provide the recipe of Meen Idi Ada – A trademark Lakshadweep dish, similar to Kerala’s traditional vegetarian ada.

Meen Idi Ada (Fish Ada) in the Lakshadweep Style of Cooking

Different varieties of seafood

Ingredients for Meen Idi Ada:

1. Fish – 250 g
2. Coconut scraped – ½
   Turmeric powder – ½ small spoon
3. Coriander – 1 big spoon
   Red chillies – 8
   Cinnamon – 1 piece
   Cloves – 4
   Cardamom – 2
   Fennel seeds – ½ small spoon
4. Fish cooked in water – A little
   Raw rice (Puzhukkalari) – 250 g
   Coconut scraped – 1
   Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
   Salt – As required

How to prepare Meen Idi Ada?

1. Soak rice and grind it to prepare flour for ada (similar to puttu powder – not very finely powdered)
2. Cook fish, adding sufficient salt and water. Then make it a powder.
3. Roast ingredients no: 2 and make a fine paste.
4. Roast ingredients no: 3 and powder it.
5. Now mix all the ingredients using your hands, adding sufficient fish-cooked water.
6. Take an urli and pour a little oil. Now rotate it once so that the urli gets a basic coat of oil.
7. Spread the flour to a ½-inch thickness using your hands, and press it well.
8. Now make holes here and there and place it in the urli.
9. Now place this urli in heated charcoal and close it tightly with a lid. Place heated charcoal on its top and bake it for 45 minutes to one hour.
10. Cut it into pieces and serve.

Now let me add two more trademark Lakshadweep dishes – Chendi Orukki from Tuna and Appal Curry (Neerazhi Curry) made from octopus.

Octopus is a common food item of Lakshadweep

Chendi Orukki

Cook ¼ kg tuna (choora in Malayalam) adding 1 cup of water and required salt. When the fish is about three-quarters cooked, add three green chillies (sliced) and curry leaves, and gently mash the mixture using a spatula. Add 3 cups of scraped coconut and cook over a low flame until all the moisture is absorbed. This dish is simple yet exceptionally tasty.

Appal Curry

In Lakshadweep, octopus is known as appal, and the locals use traditional techniques to catch it from the sea. Once cleaned and cut into pieces, it resembles squid. Prepare a masala paste using 30 dried red chillies, 3 dried gooseberries, and a little turmeric powder. Cook the octopus pieces in a pressure cooker with this masala paste, required salt, and a little vinegar.

Heat ½ cup of coconut oil in a pan and transfer the cooked octopus, along with its gravy into it. Mix well, cover with a lid, and cook until all the moisture evaporates and the dish is well fried.
Appal Curry is almost a dry-fry type non-vegetarian dish.

Courtesy: Vanitha Magazine, Archive May 15-31 2012

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