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Karnataka

Cuisine

The culinary cost offered by Karnataka is quite varied with each region of the state having its own unique flavors. Many factors and influences have contributed to enrich this culinary heritage.

A typical Karnataka meal has many delicacies like kosambari - a salad made of the broken halves of the soaked green moong dal (lentil) minus its skin, spiced with salt, green chili and mustard seeds (oggarane) and mixed with tiny scrapings of coconut, cucumber and carrot and dressed with a little lime juice.

Other popular Karnataka specialties are bisi bele huli anna - created out of rice, dal, tamarind, chili powder, and cinnamon. Gojju - a vegetable, most popularly bitter gourd, cooked in tamarind juice and jaggery with chili powder in it. Chitranna - rice with the juice of lime, green chili and turmeric powder and sprinkled with fried groundnuts and coriander leaves, and Majjige huli with tovve - vegetables in a buttermilk base.

Kesari bhath (a halwa made of semolina, sugar, and saffron), chiroti and Mysore pak are among the favorite sweets in Karnataka. But the most special is the obbattu or holigea – a flat, thin, wafer-like chappati filled with a mixture of jaggery, coconut and sugar and fried gently on a skillet. Along with payasa (south Indian kheer), obbattu is always served with celebratory meals in Karnataka.

Other delectable sweets that come out of the Kannada kitchen are the shavige payasa made of vermicelli and sugar, hesaru bele made with green gram dal, and baadami hallu, which is crushed almonds mixed with milk, sugar and saffron.

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