I am a Sikh and have grown up on north indian cuisine. For a long time my knowledge of cuisines of the southern states of India was limited to dosas and idlis. But it is now slowly growing and some of my favorite dishes come from down south. The use of coconut and curry leaves in a lot of their dishes is what particularly draws me to the cuisine of the south, though the cuisine is not just limited to these two ingredients. The food of the state of Kerala is one of my favorites. Appam and stew, iddiyapams, kerala fish fry is something I could eat any number of times as possible in a week.
I could also eat this chettinad chicken recipe that I am sharing today every week.
The recipe is from my favorite book on Indian cuisine: India: The Cookbook
If there is one Indian book you want in your collection it should be this book.
Pushpesh Pant has written an encyclopedia on Indian cuisine and you can find recipes from all different parts of India. While the steps may sometimes require a little knowledge of indian cooking, the recipes have never disappointed me.