Desert cooking: millet, lentils and gram flour, ghee in generous measure, dried beans and berries that keep, fiery red meat from the Rajput courts and sweets made for festivals.
Where it comes from
Much of Rajasthan is the Thar Desert, where water and fresh vegetables have always been scarce. Its cooks learned to make much of little: pearl millet and wheat, lentils, gram flour steamed into dumplings, and desert beans and berries such as ker and sangri, dried to keep for the year. Milk, yoghurt, buttermilk and ghee stand in for water wherever they can.
Two kitchens grew up side by side. Marwari and Jain merchant families cook strictly vegetarian — many Jains also leave out onion, garlic and root vegetables — while the Rajput courts of Mewar, Marwar and Amber hunted, and their kitchens are remembered for game and mutton cooked with fierce red chilli.
Marwari trading families settled all over India, and they took their snacks and sweets with them. Bhujia, kachori and ghevar are now known far beyond the desert.
Where in it
JaipurThe pink city, once the Kachhwaha rulers' capital, whose sweet shops stack ghevar for the monsoon festival of Teej and whose old-city stalls fry kachori from early morning.Ghevar
JodhpurThe blue city of Marwar, famous for its snacks — pyaaz kachori, mirchi bada and thick makhaniya lassi. Nearby Mathania gives its name to a prized red chilli.Pyaaz kachoriMirchi badaGatte ki sabzi
JaisalmerThe golden fort city deep in the Thar, where cooking leans hardest on what keeps: ker and sangri, bajra roti, and buttermilk.Ker sangri
BikanerA desert trading town known across India for bhujia — crisp threads of moth-bean and gram flour — and for its papad and sweet shops.Bikaneri bhujia
Udaipur and MewarThe lake city of Mewar, whose Rajput kitchens are often credited with laal maas, and where dal baati is said to have begun as a soldiers' food.Laal maasDal baati churma
How it cooks
Cooking without water
Where water is scarce, yoghurt, buttermilk, milk and ghee take its place — gatte and kadhi simmer in soured dairy, not stock.
Baking in the embers
Baati — hard balls of wholewheat dough — baked slowly in coals or an oven, then broken open and drowned in ghee.
Drying for the desert
Ker, sangri, kachri and other desert produce are sun-dried in season and soaked back to life through the year.
Gram flour for everything
Besan kneaded into gatte, pressed into bhujia, whisked into kadhi and turned into batters for pakodi and mirchi bada.
Dhungar
Smoking a finished dish: a hot coal set in a small bowl on top, a drop of ghee on it, and the lid closed for a few minutes.