Goan cuisine is a blend of different influences through the centuries, and though the recipes and techniques have changes and evolved over the years, the basic ingredients remain the same. The staple components of typical Goan food are the local products rice, fish and coconut and almost every Goan meal will have a dish comprising them. The people of Goa are gourmet seafood eaters and use prawns, lobsters, crabs, and jumbo pomfrets to make a variety of delicious soups, salads, pickles, curries and fries.
Goa Cuisine - Seafood
A Goan Cuisine values food as much as he does his daily siesta (break). And in his daily meal, seafood always has a pride of place is some form or the other. From fried fish to exotic concoctions like ambot-tik, sea food is usually a must on the menu, except for the occasional break for some religious observance.
Few of the oldest Goan restaurants offer some of the finest cuisine in Goa. You could start off with a plateful of delicious stuffed crabs. Spicy crabmeat is stuffed into the shell of the crab, sealed with a layer of dough and then baked to perfection. Or you could try the prawns stuffed Papads, which are like rolled, fried tacos with a spicy prawn filling. Once youve whetted your appetite, dive into a feast of Portuguese dishes like Fish Caldine (mildly spiced coconut and turmeric fish curry). Seafood Caldeirada (seafood poached in a white wine sauce served with sautéed vegetables).
Apart from local spices, local brews like feni and toddy also form an integral part of the cooking process. So, once youre ready for another round, try the Balchao de Camaro or spicy prawns cooked in a tangy shrimp and feni sauce. Then theres the Peixe Reachado which is a seasonal fish stuffed with a spicy homemade Goan masala and fried. End your meal on a sweet note with Bolo Sans Rival (a sweet cashew nut based cake with a layer of biscuit), which is a unique blend of flavors and textures, thats sure to have you asking for more.
Goan Cuisine- cocktails
Monks were responsible for brewing and distilling distinctive-tasting fenis from the cashew fruit and the coconut palm, which form the base of cocktails of many kinds. Apart from food, if you are looking at exotic Goan cocktails, then they are also available in almost all the restaurants in Goa. The Catamaran, for example is a smooth blend of Vodka, Bacardi, pineapple Juice and lemonade that will go well with an Oriental meal. You could begin your oriental odyssey with Stuffed Crabs, which unlike their Goan counterparts are stuffed with Thai herbs, button mushrooms and carrot. Goenchins Chicken Taipei (chicken sautéed in hot green sauce) and Prawns Taipei (prawns sautéed in Szechwan sauce) are perfect accompaniments to complement your cocktail.
Goa Cuisine - Vegetarian food
The cuisine of Goa has special treats stored for the vegetarians too. You will come across many restaurants in Goa, which serves unusual range of Hindu-Goan specialties. Try the Cashew Green Peas Bhaji (a tangy mixture of cashews, green peas, spices and fresh coconut), Sprouted Moong Ussal (bean sprouts with mustard seeds, green chillies and fresh coconut) and the Alsandachem Tonakh (kidney beans with a spicy Xacuti gravy). You can also try out the range of desserts, but the Tender Coconut Soufflé and Bebinca (a traditional seven-layered coconut and jaggery dessert) will simply capture your taste buds.
Goa Cuisine - Popular Dishes
Pastries: Pastries are almost a part of every common meals as well as occasion and feast in Goa. Christmas and the Ganesh Festival are occasions when they are prepared in all their varieties. Being the land where coconut is abundant it is not surprising that in quite a good number of these sweets coconut milk is used. However, the queen of the delicacies is the "Bebinca". It is made of eggs, pure ghee, flour, coconut milk and sugar. Other Goan pastries would include "Doce", "Cokad", "Dodol", "Bolinhas" and "Jia de Aronhas".
Rice Dishes
Cuisine of Goa, Rice is an important item of Goan diet. One will find it at every table and almost at every meal. Rice is eaten with delicious fish or meat curry, or in the form of "Pulao", and many other ways. A leavened and steamed bread called "Sana", another a round pastry called "Oddo", the steamed South Indian "Dossa" and "Iddli", a great number of sweet dishes made with rice and jaggery etc. are some of the regional preparations of Goa.
Beverages/ Drinks
Goan Food And Drink Goa has few of the dietary restrictions or taboos that apply in their regions of India, both Hindu and Muslim. Here the idea of vegetarianism is probably more equated with poverty than purity, and drinking alcohol is not the shameful activity as it is elsewhere. The Goan Palate relishes meat, especially pork, and all kinds of fresh seafood.
Feni - Goa's "National" Drink
Gently swaying coconut palms and bright red or yellow cashew apples can be found occupying Goa's half landmass under crops and their sap or juice is the source of Goa's popular "national" drink, Feni.
Making Of Feni
Cuisine of Goa, Palm Feni is pure but a strong drink ranking with the strongest spirits. It comes from Toddy, which is produced by tapping the sap from the base of the young palm shoots. Growers have to choose between producing Feni or coconuts because once tapped, the young shoots cannot go on to produce nuts, but the decision can be reversed with the next growth of shoots according to market demand.
Unfermented, the Toddy make a nourishing and refreshing drink and when strained and boiled down to crystallising point, it produces palm jaggery, the coarse brown slabs of sugar used in Goan sweet dishes.
Within hours of tapping, the Toddy ferments to about 4% of alcohol. Often, it is drunk soon afterwards, but when distilled, the first gives the more potent Urrack, a favourite drink sold in the local bars.
Types Of Feni
The famous palm Feni is the result of the second distillation. It's name in Goa's local language 'Konkani' means 'froth', a name attributed to its reaction during processing.
A second type of Feni that is even more popular is 'Caju' Feni derived from the cashew apple. The Cashew is the legacy from Portuguese who introduced it to Goa from Brazil. Cashew Feni is usually drunk after the first distillation, but one can also find it double-distilled, flavoured with Ginger, Cumin or Sasparilla to produce a smooth liqueur.
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