Traditional recipes

Crisp wheat-and-jaggery cookies pressed in wooden moulds. The sacred prasad of Chhath Puja.

Roasted-gram flour stirred into cold water with lemon and cumin. Bihar's protein-rich summer cooler.

Wholewheat balls stuffed with spiced sattu, roasted and dipped in ghee, served with a smoky mash of brinjal, tomato and potato.

Flaky wholewheat flatbread stuffed with spiced roasted gram flour, a filling breakfast across Bihar.

Steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with spiced chana dal paste, a Bihar favourite in winter.

Flattened rice with thick curd and jaggery, the traditional meal of Makar Sankranti in Bihar.

Black gram cooked with onion and spices, eaten with chura or puffed rice as a breakfast or evening snack.

Mutton slow-cooked with whole garlic and spices in a sealed clay pot over coals, from the Champaran region.

River fish cooked in a pungent mustard and garlic gravy, a pillar of Maithil food and ritual.

Fish slices marinated in mustard oil, turmeric and chilli and shallow-fried until crisp.

Thin strips of mutton marinated in raw papaya, mustard oil and spices and grilled over charcoal.

Gram-flour fritters soaked in a tangy curd and besan curry, eaten with rice on Sundays and festivals.

Thin potato sticks stir-fried in mustard oil with nigella and green chilli, the everyday side for dal-bhaat.

Soft fried bread stuffed with a dry, spiced chana dal filling, made for festivals and special breakfasts.

Fox nuts from the ponds of Mithila simmered in milk with cardamom, a light sweet for fasts and festivals.

A crisp, many-layered pastry soaked in sugar syrup, made famous by the town of Silao near Rajgir.

Thin, crisp discs of pounded sesame and jaggery or sugar, made in Gaya through the winter for Makar Sankranti.

Fried rice-flour and jaggery cakes coated with sesame or poppy seeds, a sweet of Gaya and festive Bihar.

Soft fried pancakes of flour, milk and mashed banana dipped in syrup, the sweet of Holi in Bihar.

Laddoos of roasted rice flour and jaggery, made as a prasad for Chhath Puja.

Rice cooked in milk and jaggery on the Kharna evening of Chhath Puja.

Crisp fried pastries stuffed with tangy, spiced sattu, a popular teatime snack in Bihar.

Pointed gourd candied in syrup and stuffed with sweet khoya, an unusual sweet shop favourite in Bihar.

Crisp fritters of tilkor (ivy gourd) leaves dipped in rice and gram flour batter, a Maithil side dish.

Raw mango pieces cured in mustard oil with fennel, nigella and mustard, matured in the sun.

A tangy chutney of boiled elephant foot yam with mustard oil, garlic and lemon.

A dry, nutty chutney of roasted flaxseed with garlic and chilli, eaten with rice, roti or litti.

Flatbread of finger millet flour, eaten in winter and on the eve of the Jitiya fast.

Tender gram leaves cooked with garlic and mustard oil, a winter green of the Bihar countryside.

Gram-flour fritters of onion, potato or seasonal vegetables, the Bihari name for pakoda.

Roasted fox nuts and green peas in an onion-tomato gravy, a dish that shows off Bihar’s makhana.

A cooling summer drink of wood apple pulp, water and jaggery.

Raw jackfruit cooked in a spicy onion and mustard oil gravy, often called ‘vegetarian meat’ in Bihar.

Half-moon pastries filled with khoya, semolina and dry fruit, fried for Holi and Teej; Bihar’s gujiya.

Flattened rice fried in mustard oil with peanuts, onion and green chilli, a quick evening snack.