Two kitchens and a desert
The great thing for a traveller is that you can eat in both worlds on the same day: kachori standing at a counter at eight in the morning, a thali in a village courtyard at lunch, and laal maas in a palace by lamplight.
Food that travelled: the royal kitchen grew out of war and the hunt. Nobles rode out for days, and their cooks made meat cooked slowly over wood, breads baked in camp-fire embers and spice blends that kept for weeks.
The khansamas: the royal cooks turned game brought home into dishes of great richness.
- Royal kitchen
- Meat, smoke, spice and the hunt
- Village kitchen
- Millet, lentils, ghee, desert beans
- Khansama
- A royal cook
- Common to both
- A generous hand of ghee
- Laal and safed maas: laal maas, red with chillies, and safed maas, pale with cream and ground nuts, both come from this world.
- Jungli maas: the hunter's dish, meat cooked with little more than ghee, dried chillies and salt.
- The other kitchen: it belonged to merchants, priests and farmers, and most of them were vegetarian.
- No meat at all: Jain and Vaishnava trading families did not eat it, and many Jains avoid onions, garlic and root vegetables too.
- Shaped by scarcity: water was precious and fresh vegetables rare, so milk, ghee, gram flour, millet, lentils and dried desert beans did most of the work.
- What scarcity made: gram flour becomes dumplings in gatte ki sabzi, papad is cooked as a curry, and ker and sangri, a wild berry and the beans of the khejri tree, are sun-dried for the lean months.
- Every dish explained: our Rajasthani food guide covers them, and this page shows how and where we bring you to them.
Inside the royal kitchens
- Mathania
- The chilli village near Jodhpur
- Dhungar
- Smoking a dish with hot charcoal and ghee
- Soola
- Skewers cooked over coals
- Khad
- Meat buried with coals in the sand
- Notice
- A day for the old dishes
Laal maas and the smoke of the hunt
The dish: mutton cooked slowly with yoghurt, garlic, whole spices and a generous measure of dried red chillies.
The chilli: traditionally the deep red Mathania, from a village just outside Jodhpur, prized for colour as much as heat.
- Dhungar: in the old kitchens a piece of hot charcoal was set in a small bowl inside the pot, splashed with ghee and covered, so the smoke flavoured the sauce.
- Depth, not just fire: that is what good laal maas is about.
- Today's meat: hunting is long banned, so the game of the old recipes is now goat or chicken. Our journal has a laal maas recipe with its story.
Safed maas, the gentle sibling
The dish: mutton cooked in milk, cream, yoghurt and a paste of cashews or almonds, scented with cardamom and white pepper and kept pale.
- A court feast dish: and the one we order for guests who love flavour but not chilli.
- Pair it with: a soft roti rather than a heavy baati.
Maas ke soole and the shikar dishes
Soola: skewers of marinated meat cooked over coals, a dish of the hunting camps.
- Who cooks it well: the palace hotels of Mewar and Marwar.
- Khad: meat wrapped and buried with hot coals in the sand to cook slowly, which some desert kitchens still prepare for special occasions.
- Give notice: these dishes need it, and they are worth it.
The palace thali and the royal sweets
Sweets in quantity: moong dal halwa stirred for hours in iron pans, badam ka halwa of almonds, malpua soaked in syrup.
- The palace thali: the village thali dressed in silver, with more bowls, more ghee and more courses.
- At the family table: some families serve it in their own dining rooms, and a few will tell you which dish their great-grandmother insisted on.
The families who keep the recipes
When the states ended: many palace kitchens closed, and their cooks went home to the villages or into the new hotels.
Survival on paper: many Rajput families still keep a handwritten recipe book, passed from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law, and guard it closely.
- Heritage hotels: some run by these families cook from those books.
- The long-serving cook: thirty years with a family, and he can tell you which dish was made for which festival and which maharaja refused to eat it.
- Just ask: you will often be invited into the kitchen to watch.
A table for every old kingdom
- Jaipur
- Pyaaz kachori and lassi
- Jodhpur
- Mirchi bada and mawa kachori
- Bikaner
- Bhujia, with a GI tag
- Jaisalmer
- Ker sangri and bajre ki roti
- Mewar
- Makki ki roti and dal baati churma
Jaipur and Dhundhar
Breakfast: pyaaz kachori, a flaky pastry filled with spiced onion, best known from Rawat Mishthan Bhandar near Sindhi Camp.
Then lassi: a clay cup from Lassiwala on MI Road, before it sells out.
- Monsoon: the sweet shops of Johari Bazaar, LMB among them, stack ghevar in towers for Teej.
- January: the city eats sesame sweets on its rooftops between kites.
- The full list: our food of Jaipur guide.
Jodhpur and Marwar
Mirchi bada: a fat green chilli, milder than it looks, stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in gram-flour batter and fried until it blisters.
- Mawa kachori: its sweet partner, filled with reduced milk and dipped in syrup.
- At the clock tower: Shri Mishrilal Hotel has served thick makhaniya lassi for generations.
- Marwari home cooking: panchkuta, five desert ingredients cooked together, and the oddity of gulab jamun ki sabzi, sweet dumplings in a spicy gravy.
Bikaner, the snack capital
Bikaneri bhujia: crisp strands of moth bean and gram flour spiced with black pepper, with a Geographical Indication tag.
Haldiram's: it began as a small shop here in 1937.
- In the old city: bhujia is still made in small workshops and sold by weight.
- Also known for: rasgullas and peppery papad.
- How to buy: from a busy shop where it is fried fresh.
Jaisalmer and the Thar
The desert plate: ker sangri, bajre ki roti smeared with ghee and garlic chutney, and kadhi.
- Raabdi: in winter, ask for this warming drink of millet and buttermilk that farming families have lived on for centuries.
- Vegetarian heritage: Jaisalmer's merchant past is largely Jain, so its vegetarian thalis are the more local meal.
Udaipur and Mewar
Maize country: it grows on the terraced hills, so the winter bread is makki ki roti with ghee, jaggery and greens.
- Dal baati churma: every Mewari family claims it as its own.
- Nathdwara's temple kitchens: they cook for Shrinathji many times a day, and shaped a rich vegetarian tradition of milk sweets and fried snacks shared as prasad.
Shekhawati, Hadoti and Pushkar
Shekhawati: the Marwari merchant kitchen is largely vegetarian and often without onion or garlic, with bajra and ker sangri at every meal and Chirawa's milk pedas to finish.
- Hadoti: coriander country, and Kota's kachori is famous across India.
- Pushkar: a vegetarian, alcohol-free pilgrim town known for malpua with rabri and rose gulkand. Read our food of Pushkar guide.
How we arrange a table
Private dinners in palaces and havelis
The settings: haveli courtyards, palace rooftops, a boat in the middle of Lake Pichola, Jag Mandir after the day visitors leave, and the cenotaphs of Bada Bagh in Jaisalmer.
- The food: family cooks prepare the old recipes, and laal maas and safed maas can be cooked the traditional way with a day's notice.
- The music: folk musicians play in the corner.
- Confirmed first: every venue depends on permission and season. Our page on a private dinner in a palace explains how they work.
Cooking lessons in a haveli kitchen
Market first: in a vegetable market or spice lane the cook shows you how to choose ker and sangri, which chillies to buy and how to tell good ghee by its smell.
- In the kitchen: you knead baati dough, roll gatte and learn why the order in which spices hit hot ghee matters.
- Then you eat: what you have made, together.
- Any diet: sessions can be vegetarian, Jain or include a laal maas, and children love rolling dough beside their grandparents. See a cooking class in a haveli.
Breakfast walks in the old cities
Before ten: Rajasthan's best food is eaten in the morning.
- The walk: the old lanes of Jaipur or Jodhpur with a guide who eats there every week.
- The stops: kachori at the counter, a mirchi bada hot from the pan, lassi in a clay cup and chai with the regulars.
- How we choose: the stalls with the longest queues and the hottest oil.
Markets and spice lanes
Where kitchens begin: every old city has such a market, and we walk them early with a guide who shops there.
- The markets: the vegetable and spice sellers of Jaipur's walled city, the chilli and dried-ker stalls around Jodhpur's clock tower, the bhujia workshops of old Bikaner.
- Your senses: Mathania chillies by the sack, a sliver of dried mango, and asafoetida told from cumin by scent alone.
- A souvenir: a packet of the spice blend your cook used at lunch.
Village meals and farm kitchens
Where: the Bishnoi villages near Jodhpur, the farms of Shekhawati and the hamlets around Jaisalmer.
- The meal: cooked on wood fires, with bajra roti patted out by hand, a pot of kadhi, a spoon of white butter and buttermilk churned that morning.
- Fairly arranged: we pay the families properly and agree everything in advance. Our rural homestays page explains how.
The palace dining rooms
Jaipur: the Suvarna Mahal at Rambagh Palace dines under gilded ceilings, and 1135 AD serves a royal menu in painted rooms inside Amber Fort.
- Jodhpur: a table on the terrace at Umaid Bhawan Palace faces the fort across the city.
- Ask for Rajasthani: most palace hotels cook an excellent local menu if you ask for it rather than the continental one.
Rooftops above the old cities
Udaipur: timed for the moment the City Palace lights come on across the lake.
- Jaisalmer: for the floodlit fort.
- Jaipur: for dusk over Hawa Mahal. Read about rooftop dining in Rajasthan.
Sweets that come with the seasons
- Monsoon
- Ghevar, for Teej
- Around 14 January
- Sesame sweets and feeni
- Wedding season
- Moong dal halwa
- Holi
- Gujiya, kanji vada, thandai
- All year
- Mawa kachori, rasgulla, malpua, kulfi
Ghevar, in the monsoon
How it is made: batter poured into hot ghee so it sets into a lacy honeycomb, soaked in syrup and often topped with rabri and pistachio.
- When: the sweet of Teej, in July and August, and hard to find out of season.
- Read more: our journal tells the story of ghevar and Teej.
Sesame and feeni, at Makar Sankranti
Around 14 January: Jaipur eats til laddoo, til patti and gajak, brittle sweets of sesame and jaggery.
- Feeni: a nest of fine fried threads soaked in sweet milk.
- On the roofs: families carry them up between kites.
Moong dal halwa and the winter weddings
November to February: the wedding season, when halwais stir split lentils in ghee and sugar for hours until golden.
- At a wedding: this is the dish people will ask you about afterwards.
- Winter evenings: hot saffron milk sold from great iron pans.
Gujiya and kanji vada, at Holi
When: February or March.
- Gujiya: crescent pastries filled with sweet milk solids.
- Kanji vada: lentil dumplings soaked in a sharp, fermented mustard water said to help digestion.
- Thandai: spiced almond milk, the festival drink. Be careful if it is offered with bhang, which is much stronger than people expect.
Year-round treasures
- Always there: mawa kachori in Jodhpur, rasgulla in Bikaner, malpua in Pushkar and kulfi in the walled city of Jaipur.
- The full list: our Rajasthani sweets guide covers them all.
Vegetarian, Jain and special diets
Meat-free towns: in Pushkar, Nathdwara and many temple towns, meat, eggs and alcohol are not served.
Vegetarian restaurants: most in the old cities are purely vegetarian.
- Vegetarian
- Easy almost everywhere
- No meat or alcohol
- Pushkar, Nathdwara, temple towns
- Jain
- No root vegetables; meals before sunset
- Vegan
- Say no ghee and no dairy
- Allergies
- Tell us before you arrive
- Jain cooking: it avoids root vegetables such as onions, garlic, potatoes and carrots, because pulling them from the ground harms the small creatures in the soil.
- Before sunset: traditional Jain households eat their meals in daylight.
- Jain flavour: built from spices, tomatoes, raw mango, dried berries and lentils, and it can be some of the best vegetarian food in India. Ask for Jain food and good kitchens understand at once.
- Vegans: be clear, because ghee, butter, milk, curd and paneer are in almost everything. Good hotels and our cooks will adapt.
- Gluten-free: easier than people expect, thanks to millet, maize and gram-flour breads and rice.
- Allergies: tell us before you arrive, and we brief every kitchen on your route in advance.
Street food without regret
Eat where it is busy: a stall with a long queue of locals turns its food over fast, so nothing has been sitting.
Eat it hot: food fried or cooked in front of you is almost always fine.
- Eat in the morning: the oil is fresh, the chutneys are new and the best kachori sells out early.
- Careful with raw: cut fruit, chutneys left in the heat and pani puri, anything washed in water, until your stomach has settled in.
- Water: drink bottled or filtered, and skip ice from unknown sources.
- Start small: a single kachori or half a lassi is plenty for a first morning.
- Let your guide choose: ours eat at these stalls themselves and know which kitchens are clean.
- More advice: our guide to health and safety has more, and your own doctor's advice comes first.
What Rajasthan drinks
Masala chai: milky, sweet and spiced with ginger and cardamom, offered in every shop you sit down in. Order a cutting, half a glass, at a street stall.
Lassi: thick sweet yoghurt, best from a clay kulhad in the morning. Jodhpur's makhaniya lassi is almost a pudding.
- Cutting chai
- Half a glass at a street stall
- Kulhad
- A clay cup
- Chaach
- Salted buttermilk with cumin
- Dry days
- No alcohol served
- Chaach: thin salted buttermilk with roasted cumin, the cooling drink of summer lunches.
- Raabdi: millet and buttermilk, drunk warm by farming families on winter mornings in the Thar.
- Kesar doodh: hot milk with saffron and nuts, sold on winter nights from big iron pans.
- Rose sherbet and gulkand: the cooling rose preserves of Pushkar.
- Alcohol: served in hotels and licensed restaurants, though not on dry days or in pilgrim towns.
- Royal liquors: a tradition of spiced liquors such as kesar kasturi, made with saffron, which some heritage hotels offer. Our guide to alcohol and dry days explains the rules.
A calendar of appetites
Winter: millet and maize breads come out, mustard greens fill the markets, white butter appears on every village plate and the wedding halwais work through the night.
Walking weather: winter is also the most comfortable time to walk the bazaars.
- Winter
- November to February, the great eating season
- Spring
- Holi sweets, first raw mangoes
- Summer
- April to June, buttermilk and sherbets
- Monsoon
- July to September, ghevar and pakoras
- Spring: Holi sweets and the first raw mangoes for pickles.
- Summer: the season of buttermilk, kair pickles and cooling sherbets, when sangri and ker are picked and dried in the desert.
- The monsoon: ghevar, pakoras eaten while watching the rain, and the fried snacks every family makes when the first storm breaks.
- Festivals are feasts: Diwali fills every house with sweets for neighbours, Makar Sankranti brings sesame, Teej brings ghevar and Gangaur brings its own sweets in Jaipur and Udaipur.
- The journey: our food lover's Rajasthan runs from Delhi through Jaipur, Bikaner and Jodhpur to Udaipur, timed around whatever is in season.
Who will love it
Who will love it
Serious food lovers: plan the journey around kitchens, with breakfast walks in Jaipur and Jodhpur, a haveli cooking lesson, a village meal in Marwar, a royal dinner from an old recipe and a day of bhujia in Bikaner.
- Families: they love the cooking classes and the sweet shops, and children are usually braver with street food than their parents.
- Couples: the private dinners are the most romantic evenings of the journey.
- Vegetarians: they will eat better than anywhere else they have travelled.
Who should go gently
Sensitive stomachs or little tolerance for chilli: ask for less spice and start with milder dishes such as safed maas, kadhi and gatte.
- Rich food: two big meals a day is plenty.
- How most guests eat: a light hotel breakfast after the kachori walk, a thali at lunch and something simple in the evening, saving grand dinners for two or three nights.
Table manners, the Rajasthani way
Right hand: eat with it, because the left is considered unclean for food. Cutlery is perfectly fine in restaurants.
Wash before and after: most homes and restaurants have a basin near the dining area.
- Eat with
- Your right hand
- To stop
- Cover your plate with your hand
- Tipping
- Around ten per cent if no service charge
- Prasad
- Right hand; never on the floor
- In a thali: mix a little of everything with bread or rice. Sweets can be eaten at any point, not only at the end.
- Refills: your host will keep refilling your plate. To stop, cover it with your hand and say, with a smile, that you are full. Once is rarely enough.
- Sharing: don't offer food from your own plate, and don't touch shared dishes with a hand that has been in your mouth.
- Prasad: accept it with your right hand and never put it on the floor.
- A second cup: in a home, accept another cup of tea even if you only sip it. It is a sign of respect.
- Tipping: around ten per cent for good service where no service charge is added. Our guide to money and tipping has details.