Madurai Food Journal

Dish guide

What is kothu parotta, and why is it chopped on the tawa?

If you have walked past a Madurai food street at night, you have heard kothu parotta before you have seen it — two flat blades hitting a hot griddle in a fast, steady rhythm. Kothu means chopped. Parotta is the flaky, layered flatbread of Tamil Nadu. Put them together and you get leftover-parotta alchemy: bread shredded into ribbons, thrown in with egg, gravy, onion and masala, and worked until every strand is coated.

The chopping is not showmanship. Cutting the parotta on the griddle instead of in a bowl means the bread keeps taking on heat as it breaks down, so the edges crisp while the middle stays soft and soaked with gravy. Do it off the heat and you get a damp pile; do it on the tawa and you get texture in every mouthful.

We make four versions in Toongabbie — veg, egg, chicken and mutton. Egg kothu parotta is the traditional late-night one. Mutton is the richest. All of them come with extra gravy on the side, because in Madurai nobody eats kothu parotta dry.

One note for delivery orders: kothu parotta travels better than almost anything else on our menu. It is meant to steam a little in its own heat.

See our parotta menu →

Ingredient guide

Seeraga Samba: the small rice that makes Madurai biryani different

Most biryani in Sydney is made with long-grain basmati: separate, fragrant, elegant. Southern Tamil Nadu does something else. Seeraga Samba is a tiny, cumin-seed-shaped grain — the name literally comes from seeragam, cumin — and it behaves nothing like basmati.

It absorbs far more liquid for its size, which means it drinks up mutton stock, ghee and masala instead of sitting beside them. The result is denser, stickier and much more strongly flavoured: a biryani you eat with a spoon and feel in your chest. It also takes longer to cook and punishes impatience, which is why it is a special-occasion rice back home.

Our Seeraga Samba mutton biryani is the dish we would put in front of someone who says they have already tried biryani. Bone-in mutton, slow-simmered, no shortcuts. If you prefer the lighter style, our Madurai chicken biryani uses long-grain rice and is the more familiar plate of the two.

Both come as party buckets too — a half bucket feeds around twenty guests, which is how most Western Sydney birthdays we cater start.

See our biryani menu →

Drink guide

Jigarthanda: the cold drink Madurai is famous for

The name translates roughly as "cool heart", and in a Madurai summer that is a medical claim as much as a marketing one. Jigarthanda is built in layers: chilled milk sweetened and thickened, nannari (sarsaparilla) syrup for its cooling herbal edge, soaked kadal paasi — a seaweed-based jelly — or almond gum for body, and a scoop of ice cream on top.

It is not a milkshake and it is not a falooda. The texture is the point: you should get chewy pieces, cold milk and melting ice cream in the same sip. Stir it once before you drink, then leave it alone.

Order it after something spicy — pepper chicken, mutton chukka or a Mysore masala dosai. If you want the other Madurai street classic, ask for a goli soda: the old marble-stoppered bottle you push open with your thumb.

See our drinks menu →

Ordering guide

First time eating Tamil food in Western Sydney? Order this

South Indian menus can look intimidating if idly and uttappam are new words. They should not be. Here is the order we would put together for a first visit to Toongabbie, for two people.

Start: Chicken 65 — crisp, red, tossed with curry leaves. Vegetarian? Methu Vadai with sambar.

Main: Madurai chicken biryani if you want the crowd-pleaser, or chicken kothu parotta if you want the thing that makes Madurai Madurai.

Share: A ghee roast dosai down the middle of the table. Nobody has ever regretted this.

Finish: Jigarthanda, or a filter coffee if you have room for neither.

On heat: Tamil food is spiced, not scorching. Pepper chicken and mutton chukka carry real heat; biryani, dosai and idly are gentle. Tell us at the counter and we will steer you.