Traditional recipes

Hard-baked wheat balls dunked in ghee, served with spiced mixed dal and sweet crumbled churma. Rajasthan’s best-known meal.

Boiled gram-flour dumplings simmered in a tangy curd gravy, made when fresh vegetables are hard to find.

A dry dish of desert berries (ker) and khejri beans (sangri), cooked with spices and dried mango powder.

A fiery red mutton curry coloured and flavoured by Mathania chillies, ghee and curd.

A rich white mutton curry cooked in milk, cream, cashew and almond paste, without any red chilli.

Thick, hand-patted flatbreads of pearl millet, eaten with ghee, jaggery, garlic chutney or buttermilk in the desert winter.

A thin, warm porridge-drink of bajra flour and buttermilk or water, spiced with ajwain or ginger.

Flaky deep-fried pastries stuffed with a spicy onion filling, a Jodhpur breakfast and tea-time snack.

Large mild green chillies stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in gram-flour batter and fried, a street snack of Jodhpur.

A honeycomb-like disc of fried batter soaked in sugar syrup, made for the monsoon festivals of Teej and Raksha Bandhan.

A sweet kachori filled with mawa, nuts and cardamom, fried and dipped in sugar syrup. A speciality of Jodhpur.

Soft, crisp-edged pancakes of milk-thickened batter fried in ghee and soaked in syrup. Pushkar is famous for them.

Ground moong dal slow-roasted in plenty of ghee and cooked with milk and sugar into a rich, grainy halwa for winter weddings.

Crisp thin strands of moth bean and gram flour spiced with black pepper. Bikaneri Bhujia is a GI-tagged product of Bikaner.

Roasted papads broken into a spicy curd gravy, a quick dish from the desert kitchen that needs no fresh vegetables.

A spicy, tangy buttermilk and gram-flour curry, thinner and hotter than the north Indian kind, often with small pakodis.

A spiced flatbread of wheat and gram flour with onion, chilli and coriander, cooked on a tawa with ghee.

Pounded pearl millet cooked with moong dal into a thick porridge and eaten with ghee and kadhi in the desert winter.

Broken wheat roasted in ghee and cooked with jaggery, the auspicious sweet of Rajasthani homes.

A grainy, caramel-centred milk sweet slowly cooked from milk and sugar, made famous by the sweet shops of Alwar.

A fiery red garlic and chilli chutney, eaten with bajre ki roti, dal baati and snacks.

Sun-dried moong dal dumplings fried and cooked in a tomato gravy, often with potatoes.

A pickle of gunda (lasoda) berries, sticky green fruits of the Cordia tree, with mustard, fennel and mustard oil.

A sweet, sour and spicy relish of raw mango pieces cooked with jaggery, fennel and nigella seeds.

Soft moong dal fritters soaked in kanji, a tangy fermented mustard-seed water. A Marwari speciality for Holi.

A firm, grainy sweet of roasted gram flour, ghee and sugar syrup, cut into squares. A Diwali sweet in Rajasthan.

A thick wheat roti decorated by pinching patterns into its surface, slow-cooked on a tawa and filled with ghee.

A plain, hunter-style meat dish cooked with only ghee, dry red chillies and salt.

Smoky skewered pieces of marinated mutton grilled over charcoal, a Rajput barbecue dish.

Crisp fritters of coarsely ground chana dal with whole spices, fried twice and served with chutney.

Winter laddoos of wheat flour, edible gum, ghee, jaggery and nuts, given to new mothers and eaten for warmth.

Rice cooked with fried gram-flour dumplings and whole spices, a festive pulao from Rajasthani kitchens.

Fresh turmeric root cooked in ghee with curd, peas and spices, a winter dish of Marwar.

A thick dal of five lentils tempered with ghee and spices, the traditional partner of baati.

A tangy chutney of kachri, a small wild desert melon, ground with garlic and red chilli.

A layered vegetable rice dish from Jodhpur with fried vegetables, milk and whole spices.

Boiled potatoes in a light curd gravy with cumin and spices, made without onion or garlic.