A kitchen shaped by the desert
Scarcity: Bikaner lies in one of the driest parts of India, where for centuries fresh vegetables were scarce, water precious and the growing season short.
What it cooks with: what could grow in sandy soil, be gathered from desert trees, or be dried and stored for months.
The larder: bajra, moth beans, lentils and gram, buttermilk, ghee, and the dried berries and beans of the desert.
- Staple grain
- Pearl millet, called bajra
- Key pulses
- Moth beans, lentils and gram
- Dairy
- Buttermilk and ghee
- Built to
- Keep, travel and use little water
- Designed to last: dishes keep without refrigeration, travel with caravans and herders, and use little water.
- The result: that is why Bikaner is a city of snacks, papads and dried dumplings.
- Wealth too: its merchants, many of them Jain and Marwari families, made fortunes across India, and its rulers kept a lavish court.
- What money brought: sugar, saffron, dried fruit, fine flour and skilled cooks, and a sweet tradition to match any in the country.
- Today's table: the thrift of the desert and the generosity of the haveli.
- The wider cuisine: our Rajasthani food guide explains it, and our main Bikaner guide introduces the city.
Bhujia, the snack that conquered India
The dough: moth bean flour and gram flour, seasoned with salt, black pepper and other spices, pressed into fine strands and fried until crisp.
The moth bean: a small, hardy desert pulse that gives a nutty, slightly earthy flavour. The black pepper gives the bite.
Its origins: local tradition dates its first making in Bikaner to the late nineteenth century, in the reign of Maharaja Dungar Singh.
- Made from
- Moth bean flour and gram flour
- Flavour
- Nutty, earthy, with black pepper bite
- First made
- Late 19th century, by local tradition
- GI tag
- Since 2010
- Haldiram's
- Began in Bikaner, 1937
- Protected: since 2010 a Geographical Indication tag means only bhujia made in the Bikaner region may be sold as Bikaneri bhujia.
- Fortunes: Haldiram's, now one of India's largest snack companies, began as a small shop in Bikaner in 1937, and other major brands trace their roots to Bikaner families.
- Still small-scale: in the old city, dozens of small workshops and family shops still make it and sell it loose by weight.
- Every shop's blend: some hotter, some more peppery, some with a hint of clove or cardamom.
- A trusted name: Bhikharam Chandmal is one of the long-established shops many Bikaner families swear by.
- How to taste it: fresh, at a busy shop where it is being fried, trying a few blends side by side.
- Alongside: namkeen mixtures, sev of different thicknesses and peanuts.
Breakfast in the old city
- When
- Early, the best is gone by nine
- Best-known
- Chhotu Motu Joshi, near the station and Kote Gate
- Order first
- Dal kachori, then pyaaz kachori
Kachori
What it is: a round, flaky pastry stuffed with spiced lentils or onion, fried until golden.
- Served with: a tangy tamarind chutney or a potato curry, hot from the pan.
- The order: the city's favourite breakfast. Try the dal kachori first, then the pyaaz kachori with its sweet, spiced onion filling.
Puri and sabzi
- What it is: puffed fried breads with potato curry and often a dish of fenugreek, a hearty start before the fort.
- Where: Chhotu Motu Joshi, near the station and Kote Gate, is the best-known place for a Bikaner breakfast, with queues from early morning.
Jalebi
What it is: spirals of batter fried and soaked in syrup, crisp outside and sticky within.
- How it is eaten: hot in the morning, sometimes with a glass of milk or a bowl of rabri, a thick sweetened milk.
- Best moment: a hot jalebi in a cold January dawn is one of life's simplest pleasures.
Samosa and mirchi bada
Mirchi bada: a large green chilli stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in batter and fried.
- When: these savoury fried snacks of Rajasthan are sold from mid-morning to evening.
- How: best shared, and best eaten fresh.
The sweets of Bikaner
- All year
- Rasgulla, rabri, rasmalai, kalakand
- Monsoon
- Ghevar, around Teej in July and August
- Winter
- Gond ke laddoo, til papdi, halwas
- Makar Sankranti
- Sesame and jaggery sweets
Rasgulla
What it is: soft, spongy balls of fresh cheese, chhena, cooked in light sugar syrup.
- Whose is it: Bengal and Odisha have their own claims, but Bikaner has made it its own, and Bikaneri rasgullas are sold in tins across India.
- How to eat it: fresh and cool, ideally where it is made. Chhotu Motu Joshi is famous for its rasgullas as well as its breakfasts.
Ghevar, in the monsoon
What it is: a disc of fried batter with a honeycomb texture, soaked in syrup and often topped with rabri and nuts.
- When: made in the weeks around Teej, in July and August, the sweet of the monsoon.
- Out of season: the sweet shops rarely make it.
Winter sweets
Gond ke laddoo: made with edible gum, ghee and nuts.
- Around Makar Sankranti: til papdi and other sesame and jaggery sweets.
- Halwas: rich moong dal or carrot halwa.
- Why: made to keep out the desert cold, and they do.
Milk sweets and rabri
Cattle and camel country: Bikaner's milk sweets are excellent.
Rabri: milk cooked down slowly into thick, sweet layers.
- Rasmalai and kalakand: cheese dumplings in saffron milk, and a grainy milk fudge.
- Mawa sweets: of every shape.
- All of them explained: our Rajasthani sweets guide.
An old-city food walk, the way we do it
Early morning, kachori and jalebi
- Where and when: soon after sunrise near Kote Gate, as the kachori stalls fry their first batches and the jalebi makers pipe spirals into hot oil.
- What to share: a dal kachori and a pyaaz kachori, then a hot jalebi, standing at the counter with everyone else on their way to work.
Mid-morning, a bhujia workshop
Watch: the dough pressed through the ladle into the oil, and taste it warm.
- Compare: a couple of other blends from neighbouring shops.
- Learn: your guide will explain why one is hotter and another more peppery.
Late morning, sweets and chai
Finish: at a sweet shop with a rasgulla or a bowl of rabri, and chai to cut the sweetness.
- By season: a gond laddoo in winter, a slice of ghevar in the monsoon.
- Then: rest at your hotel before lunch, which you may well decide to skip.
Evening, the second round
- When: the lanes fill with families and the snack shops do their busiest trade.
- The perfect end: a mirchi bada, a glass of hot saffron milk and a walk past the lit havelis.
Papad, mangodi and the art of drying
Bikaneri papad: famous across India, thin, crisp wafers of lentil flour, rolled by hand and dried in the desert sun.
A cottage industry: papad-making is largely done by women at home, and it supports thousands of families in the city.
- Papad
- Lentil wafers, moth bean or urad
- Seasoned with
- Black pepper, sometimes cumin
- Made by
- Women at home, a cottage industry
- Mangodi
- Sun-dried moong dal dumplings
- At every meal: roasted over a flame or fried.
- Papad as a curry: papad ki sabzi, broken papad simmered in spiced yoghurt.
- Mangodi: small dumplings of ground moong dal, dropped onto cloth in neat rows and dried until hard.
- In place of vegetables: they keep for months, and in the desert they took the place of fresh vegetables.
- Mangodi ki sabzi: cooked in a spiced gravy, a staple of Marwari home cooking.
- A family visit: ask your guide if you can visit a family who make papad or mangodi, one of the most authentic glimpses of Bikaner home life.
The everyday dishes of the desert
Ker sangri
The signature dish of the Thar: ker are small, tart berries of a desert shrub. Sangri are the long beans of the khejri tree, which the Bishnoi protect as sacred.
- How it is cooked: both dried and stored, then cooked with oil, spices and dried mango powder.
- The taste: tangy, slightly bitter, the desert itself.
- Its story: our journal piece on ker sangri.
Panchkuta
What it is: a richer cousin of ker sangri, from five dried desert ingredients cooked with spices.
- Usually including: ker, sangri, kumatiya seeds and the small berries called gunda.
- Traditionally: a dish for festivals and guests.
Bajra roti and khichda
Bajra roti: pearl millet grows where wheat struggles, and its thick, nutty roti is the bread of the desert.
- In winter: eaten hot with white butter and jaggery.
- Bajre ka khichda: millet cooked with lentils, a homely dish.
- Akha Teej: on Bikaner's foundation day the khichda becomes a celebration, eaten across the city with tamarind water.
Kadhi and gatte
Kadhi: a thin, tangy curry of sour yoghurt and gram flour.
- Gatte: steamed gram flour dumplings, cut into pieces and cooked in a spiced yoghurt gravy.
- Why they matter: they turn the desert's most reliable ingredients, buttermilk and gram flour, into something comforting.
Dal baati churma
Baati: hard wheat rolls baked in embers, broken into lentils with plenty of ghee.
- Churma: a sweet of crushed wheat, ghee and sugar served alongside.
- When: Rajasthan's great feast dish, eaten at weddings, festivals and family picnics across the state.
- Make it: our dal baati churma recipe.
Raab
What it is: a simple, cooling drink-soup of millet flour and buttermilk.
- Whose food: farmers and herders have eaten it for centuries, especially in the heat.
- Finding it: rarely in a restaurant, but ask a family and they may make it for you.
The royal kitchen and the hunting table
Meat-eating courts: unlike the largely vegetarian merchant city around them, the Rajput courts developed a cuisine of game and mutton cooked over fire.
Laal maas: mutton cooked slowly with fiery red Mathania chillies, garlic and yoghurt until the sauce is deep red and the meat falls apart.
Safed maas: its gentle opposite, mutton in a creamy white sauce of yoghurt, cashews and cardamom.
- Laal maas
- Mutton with fiery Mathania chillies
- Safed maas
- Mutton in yoghurt, cashew and cardamom
- Jungli maas
- The hunter's dish of meat, ghee and chilli
- Soola
- Smoked kebabs
- Today
- Made with mutton or chicken, not game
- Jungli maas: cooked in the field with little more than meat, ghee, salt and dried chillies.
- No more game: the game of the old hunts is no longer served. Today these dishes are made with mutton or chicken.
- Where to taste it: the palace hotels, whose chefs often cook family recipes from the royal kitchens.
- Ask in advance: they may prepare dishes not on the menu, such as smoked soola kebabs or a slow-cooked mutton curry for a private courtyard dinner.
- Across Rajasthan: our page on food and royal kitchens explains how the cuisine developed.
- At home: our laal maas recipe shows how to make it.
How Bikaner's food travelled
The great migration: from the eighteenth century, Marwari merchant families from Bikaner, Shekhawati and the surrounding desert spread across India.
As what: traders, bankers and industrialists, especially in Kolkata and the cities of the east.
- Their food went too: vegetarian thalis, snacks, pickles and sweets.
- National favourites: the shops they founded, and the brands that grew from them, are why Bikaneri bhujia and sweets are known across India rather than only at home.
- Coming home: many families kept their Bikaner homes and returned for weddings and festivals.
- The same story in stone: their havelis in the old city, including the Rampuria mansions, are its architectural side.
- Merchant towns: our page on painted havelis explains how merchant wealth built the old towns of the desert.
Vegetarian and Jain food
A vegetarian city: many of Bikaner's merchant families are Jain or Vaishnav, and the old city's food is overwhelmingly vegetarian.
Jain cooking: it avoids onion, garlic, potatoes and other root vegetables.
- Vegetarian
- The old city's everyday food
- Jain
- No onion, garlic or root vegetables
- Vegan
- Tell us ahead, dairy is everywhere
- Gluten-free
- Millet rotis, dals, many sabzis
- Before sunset: many observant Jains eat only before sunset.
- Understood here: restaurants and sweet shops know these needs, and the palace hotels will cook Jain meals on request, given notice.
- For vegans: the challenge is ghee, butter, milk and yoghurt, which run through almost everything. Tell us in advance and we will brief the kitchens.
- Avoiding gluten: millet rotis, dals and many sabzis are naturally free of wheat, though cross-contamination in small kitchens is hard to rule out.
What to drink
Chai and milk
- Chai: sweet, milky, spiced tea, drunk all day from small cups at roadside stalls and in fine china at the palaces.
- Winter evenings: a glass of hot milk with saffron or cardamom is the old city's evening drink.
Chaach and lassi
Chaach: thin salted buttermilk spiced with cumin, the desert's great cooler, served with meals and at every stop in summer.
- Lassi: the thicker yoghurt drink, sweet or salted, and a meal in itself.
- The styles: our journal on lassi explains them.
Camel milk
Where: the milk parlour at the National Research Centre on Camel.
- What: camel milk, camel milk tea and camel milk ice cream.
- The taste: lightly salty and sweet, and it surprises almost everyone pleasantly.
- When: in the late afternoon, when the herds come home.
Alcohol
Where: the palace hotels and licensed bars and shops.
- Where not: the old city's eateries, anywhere near temples, and never on official dry days.
- The rules: our page on alcohol and dry days.
Street food without the worry
Eat where the locals queue: a busy shop has a fast turnover, and food fried in front of you and eaten hot is generally safe.
Go early: breakfast foods are freshest in the morning, and fried snacks are best soon after they leave the pan.
- Take care with: raw salads, cut fruit, chutneys that have been standing, and ice in drinks at street stalls.
- Water: drink bottled or filtered water, and use it to brush your teeth for the first few days.
- Milk sweets: best from well-known, busy shops, especially in the hot months.
- Start gently: a few bites of several things rather than a full plate of one, and let your stomach adjust over a couple of days.
- More advice: our guide to health and safety in Rajasthan.
Cooking lessons and family tables
Cooking sessions: we arrange them with Bikaner families in a haveli courtyard or a family kitchen.
What you learn: dishes such as ker sangri, kadhi, gatte and bajra roti, often from a grandmother who has cooked them for fifty years.
- Then you eat: together, what you made. It is relaxed, hands-on and full of conversation.
- How it works: our page on a cooking class in a haveli.
- A whole journey: our food trail journey is built around the kitchens of Rajasthan.
- Private dinners: a lamplit courtyard, a rooftop under the stars or the lakeside at Gajner, with Rajasthani dishes and, if you like, desert musicians.
- The grandest tables: the dining rooms of Laxmi Niwas Palace and Narendra Bhawan.
Table manners, Bikaner style
Manuhar: the Rajasthani art of pressing food on a guest, again and again. Saying no once is politeness, not refusal.
Really full: cover your plate with your hand and smile.
- Right hand: eat with it when eating with your fingers, and use the left for passing dishes or holding a glass.
- Wash: before and after the meal. A bowl of water or a basin will usually be offered.
- Wait: to be served, and for the host to invite you to begin.
- Jain and Vaishnav homes: don't bring meat, eggs or alcohol, and ask before bringing food as a gift.
- Your plate: leaving a little tells your host you have been well fed. Clearing it completely invites a refill.
- More widely: our guide to etiquette and dress in Rajasthan.
Taking Bikaner home
Bhujia: buy from a busy, established shop on your last day, and choose a couple of blends so you can compare them at home.
Papad and mangodi: they travel well.
- Bhujia
- Sealed tin or vacuum pack, keeps weeks
- Papad and mangodi
- Keep for months
- Rasgullas
- Sealed tins, no fridge until opened
- Milk sweets
- Eat them in Bikaner
- Rasgullas: sold in sealed tins that keep without refrigeration until opened.
- Milk sweets: they spoil quickly, so enjoy them in the city.
- Before you pack: check the import rules of your home country.
- More to buy and do: our list of things to do in Bikaner, and our Bikaner itinerary, which builds in time for an old-city food walk.
