Ghee, smoke and a kitchen with no clock
Some of the havelis where we arrange classes still have their old kitchens, smoke-darkened and cool. Shoes come off at the door, the cook sits on the floor beside a low clay stove with everything within reach, and cooking there feels like being invited into the heart of a family.
The rasoda: in old Rajasthani houses the kitchen was the most private room of all. In a merchant's haveli it lay deep in the women's quarters, often on the ground floor around a small courtyard, and strangers never entered.
The chulha: the cooking fire was a low clay stove fed with wood or dung cakes.
- Where
- Jaipur, Udaipur, Rohet, Bikaner, Shekhawati
- Allow
- Three to four hours, ending with a meal
- Group
- Private, for your party alone
- Best months
- October to March
- Diets
- Vegetarian, Jain, vegan, gluten-free
- Shaped by the desert: fresh vegetables were scarce, water precious and summers brutal, so the kitchen cooked with what could be dried and stored.
- The store cupboard: gram flour, millet, lentils and beans, dried desert berries and pods, buttermilk, ghee and spices. From those humble things came some of the most satisfying food in India.
- Gatte: dumplings of gram flour simmered in spiced yoghurt, standing in for vegetables.
- Ker sangri: the berries of a desert bush and the beans of the khejri tree, now served at weddings.
- Baati: hard wheat rolls baked in embers, which keep for days and were carried by soldiers and herders.
- The royal kitchens: the Rajput courts were great meat eaters, unlike the largely vegetarian merchant towns around them, and their cooks perfected game and mutton cooked over fire.
- The royal dishes: laal maas, fierce with red chillies, safed maas, white with cream and nuts, and soola, meat marinated, skewered and smoked over coals.
- Still cooked: hunting is long gone and game has given way to mutton and chicken, but in some old families and palace kitchens the recipes are cooked as they were.
- The royal world: in a Jaipur haveli, a cook trained in the old Rajput kitchen tradition might teach you safed maas, maas ke soole or a full vegetarian feast.
- The everyday world: in a family home in old Udaipur, the lady of the house might teach you her everyday dal, a seasonal vegetable and how to puff a roti over the flame.
- Either way: you cook with your hands, eat what you make and leave understanding Rajasthan a little better.
The dishes you might learn
Dal baati churma
The great dish: the one every guest asks for.
- The baati: coarse wheat dough rolled into balls and baked hard, traditionally in the embers of a dung fire and now often in a special oven, then cracked open and drenched in ghee.
- With it: panchmel dal, a mixture of five lentils, and churma, the same baked wheat crushed with ghee and sugar or jaggery into a sweet crumble.
- What you learn: the dough, the baking and how much ghee is enough, which in Rajasthan is always a little more.
Gatte ki sabzi
How it is made: gram flour kneaded with spices and yoghurt, rolled into fingers, boiled, sliced into small dumplings and simmered in a yoghurt gravy with cumin, turmeric and red chilli.
- A dish of the desert: born of a land without vegetables.
- Our favourite to teach: everyone's first gatte come out a different shape.
Ker sangri
The ingredients: small, tart ker berries and the long dried beans of the khejri tree, called sangri.
- The method: soaked, boiled and cooked with oil, spices and dried mango powder.
- The taste: sour, earthy and quite unlike anything else. Our journal explains the dish in ker sangri explained.
Kadhi and bajra roti
Kadhi: buttermilk thickened with gram flour and tempered with mustard seeds, curry leaves and dried chillies. Rajasthani homes make it almost daily.
- Bajra roti: thick flatbreads of pearl millet patted out by hand, cooked on an iron griddle and served with white butter and jaggery.
- Fair warning: patting a millet roti without cracking it takes years. Expect to fail cheerfully.
Laal maas
The dish: mutton slow-cooked with a great deal of dried red chilli, yoghurt, garlic and whole spices, until the gravy turns deep red and the oil rises to the top.
- The chilli: ideally the famous chillies of Mathania near Jodhpur.
- Dhungar: some families finish it with a piece of hot charcoal in a small bowl of ghee inside the covered pot, so the meat takes on a smoky perfume.
- More: our laal maas recipe.
Safed maas and soola
Safed maas: the gentle opposite of laal maas, mutton in a white gravy of yoghurt, cream, cashews and almonds, scented with cardamom.
- Soola: or maas ke soole, meat marinated in spices and yoghurt, threaded on skewers and cooked over charcoal, a dish of the old hunting camps.
- Who teaches them: the cooks of our Jaipur haveli and a few family kitchens.
Sweets for the season
Taught in many kitchens: malpua, sweet pancakes fried in ghee and soaked in syrup, lapsi, a broken-wheat pudding, and churma laddoo.
- Ghevar: in the monsoon before Teej, some cooks show you how the honeycomb disc of fried batter is made.
- Most buy it: the method is famously tricky, so most families get ghevar from the sweet shops.
A class, hour by hour
- Lunch class
- Starts late morning
- Dinner class
- Starts late afternoon
- Allow
- Three to four hours
- Take home
- The recipes, written out
- Children
- Given the shaping jobs
The welcome and the spice tray
Arrive: take off your shoes, and have a glass of chai or, in the heat, chilled buttermilk.
- The masala dabba: the round steel spice box found in every Indian kitchen.
- What is inside: cumin and coriander, turmeric, red chilli, fenugreek, hing or asafoetida, carom seeds and dried mango powder. You smell and taste each and learn what it does.
- Worth it: many guests say this half hour changes how they cook at home.
Preparing together
Hands in: knead dough for baati or roti, shape gatte, soak and rinse ker sangri and grind a fresh masala on a stone or in a mixer.
- Gentle correction: the cook corrects your hands, and there is a great deal of laughter.
- Children: they do the shaping with enthusiasm and very little regard for symmetry.
At the fire
Gas or chulha: on gas burners in a modern kitchen, or over a chulha in an older one.
- The tadka: the tempering of spices in hot ghee or oil that begins or finishes most dishes, and the moment to add each so it releases flavour without burning.
- No clock: you watch the cook judge doneness by smell and sound.
The meal
Where you eat: on low stools or a carpet in the courtyard, or at a table on the roof.
- The thali: steel or brass, with pickles, papad and fresh rotis brought hot from the fire.
- The family: they usually join you, or serve you first and eat afterwards, as is the custom.
- The real recipe: the recipes are written out for you, though the cook will say, as our grandmother did, that the real recipe is in your hands now.
Where we arrange cooking classes
- Grandest
- A Jaipur heritage haveli, royal recipes
- Most personal
- Family homes in old Jaipur and Udaipur
- Family recipes
- Rohet Garh, south of Jodhpur
- Vegetarian merchant food
- Bikaner, with bhujia
- Over an open fire
- The desert camps of Manvar and Jaisalmer
Jaipur, in a heritage haveli
Most requested: a heritage haveli in Jaipur, with a cook trained in the Rajput royal kitchen tradition.
- On the menu: safed maas, maas ke soole and laal maas, or a vegetarian feast of dal baati churma, gatte and ker sangri, in a courtyard or on a roof terrace.
- The grandest: it ends with a long meal. Our food of Jaipur guide explains the city's dishes.
Jaipur and Udaipur, in a family home
Home kitchens: in the old cities of Jaipur and Udaipur, several women run classes in their own kitchens.
- Everyday food: dal, a seasonal vegetable, rotis and parathas, chai and sometimes a simple sweet.
- Not a cookery school: relaxed and personal, and you meet the family as well as the food.
- The Mewar way: in Udaipur, with maize breads in winter. Our food of Udaipur guide has more.
Rohet Garh, the family's own recipes
The Thakurani's kitchen: at Rohet Garh, south of Jodhpur, the late Thakurani Sahiba Jayendra Kumari trained the fort's cooks herself and wrote cookbooks of Rajput and Marwari recipes.
- Today: her daughter-in-law, Rashmi Singh, continues the lessons in the family kitchen.
- Expect: laal maas, safed maas, ker sangri and bajra rotis with white butter and jaggery. Our page on Rohet tells the family story.
Bikaner, with a merchant family
Bhujia: Bikaner is famous for the crisp, spiced gram-flour noodles sold across India.
- Merchant cooking: and for a rich vegetarian cuisine of the Marwari merchant families.
- What we arrange: lessons with a Bikaner family, and a bhujia tasting in a workshop to see the snack made by hand.
Jodhpur and the desert
- In Jodhpur: a session making mirchi bada, big green chillies stuffed with spiced potato and fried in gram-flour batter, and pyaaz kachori.
- In the camps: at Manvar or near Jaisalmer, the cooks show you how to pat bajra rotis and bake baati in the embers of an open fire, the way this food was meant to be made.
Shekhawati and the rawlas
- With the kitchen team: in the painted towns of Shekhawati and the country rawlas of Marwar and Mewar, where cooks often come from families who have served the house for generations.
- Setting: at Rawla Narlai and Castle Mandawa, the setting is half the pleasure.
Before the class, the spice market
A walk first: for guests who want to understand the ingredients, we begin in the old bazaar with the cook or a guide.
Jaipur's spice sellers: mountains of red chilli, turmeric, coriander and cumin, sacks of dried ker and sangri, papads hung in bundles and tins of hing.
What you learn: how locals judge chilli by colour and smell, and why whole spices are better than ground.
- Amchur: dried mango powder, used to give sourness in a land without tomatoes.
- The vegetable market: in season, carrots, radishes and mustard greens in winter, fresh green chillies year round, lotus stems and fresh fenugreek.
- The dairy lanes: buttermilk churned, white butter sold by weight and mawa, milk cooked down to a paste for sweets.
- The sweet shops: taste a little of everything.
- Carrying spices home: we take you to sellers we trust, who pack them airtight. Check your own country's rules on bringing food home.
- Read more: our Rajasthani food guide explains the ingredients in more depth.
Vegetarian, Jain, vegan and other diets
A vegetarian state: much of Rajasthan, especially its merchant and Jain communities, is strictly vegetarian, and the vegetarian kitchen is extraordinarily rich. In many family homes a class will be vegetarian anyway.
Jain cooking: it avoids onions, garlic and root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, and some Jain families avoid eating after sunset. We arrange a class with a family who cook that way every day.
- Vegetarian
- Every class can be
- Jain
- No onions, garlic or root vegetables
- Vegan
- Possible, with planning
- Gluten-free
- Bajra and makki rotis
- Tell us early
- Nut allergies above all
- Vegan: ghee, butter, yoghurt and buttermilk run through Rajasthani food, so it needs planning. Our cooks can use oil instead of ghee and leave out dairy.
- Easy swaps: many desert dishes, ker sangri among them, adapt easily.
- Gluten-free: the millet breads of the desert are a gift, as bajra and makki, maize, rotis contain no wheat.
- But wheat is about: kitchens handle wheat flour too, so tell us how severe any allergy or intolerance is.
- Chilli: it can be adjusted in every dish except laal maas, which is meant to be fierce. The cooks will make a milder version, or one pot for you and one for the brave.
- Nuts: they appear in many rich gravies and sweets. Tell us before you arrive and we brief the kitchen.
The seasons of the Rajasthani kitchen
October to March, the best season
Perfect for a class: the cool months are the most generous time of year in the kitchen.
- Winter food: millet rotis with white butter and jaggery, mustard greens, fresh carrots for gajar ka halwa and warming dishes with ginger and dried fruit.
- Diwali: around Diwali, in October or November, families make sweets and savoury snacks to share with neighbours, and a class then will include them.
- Makar Sankranti: for Makar Sankranti in January, Jaipur makes til sweets of sesame and jaggery, and pheeni, a sweet of fine fried threads.
April to June, the hot months
- The kitchen cools itself: buttermilk, raw mango drinks, light dals and dishes from dried ingredients stored for the summer.
- Shorter classes: they still run, usually in the early evening, but the heat of the kitchen is real, so we keep them short.
July to September, the monsoon
Rainy-day food: fried snacks, pakoras and kachoris with hot tea.
- Teej: the season when the sweet shops make ghevar.
- The mood: a lovely, green time to cook in a courtyard while the rain falls outside.
Manners in a Rajasthani kitchen
Shoes off: before you enter the kitchen, even if no one asks you to.
Wash and ask: wash your hands before you start, and ask before touching the stove, the water pots or the shrine many kitchens keep in a corner.
- Right hand: eat with it, and use it to give and receive food. The left is kept for other things.
- Nothing back: don't put food back once it has been on your plate, and don't offer food from your own plate or a spoon you have eaten from.
- Ask before photographs: especially of women in the family, and accept a no.
- Gifts: sweets from a good shop, fruit or something from your own country is perfect. Alcohol is not appropriate in most homes.
- Thank the cook by name: if you would like to tip, give it to them directly, and we will tell you what is appropriate.
Who will love it
Anyone who loves food: you don't need to be a good cook.
Couples: enjoy it as an afternoon together.
Families: children enjoy the shaping and kneading.
- Solo travellers: often say it was the day they felt most at home in Rajasthan.
- Keen cooks: ask for a longer session, two classes in different regions, or a day that begins in the spice market and ends with a royal meal.
- Food writers and chefs: some ask to spend a morning in a haveli kitchen just watching, and we can arrange that too.
- Less suited: guests who dislike heat or smoke, or would rather be served. For them, a long Rajasthani lunch or a private dinner in a palace with dishes from the royal kitchens.
- More ideas: our page on food and royal kitchens, and our food lover's Rajasthan journey, built around the state's kitchens.
- No published prices: each class is arranged for you alone. Tell us where you are going, what you like and how many will cook, and we suggest the kitchen with your plan. You can plan your journey at any time.
Fitting a class into your journey
In Jaipur
Fort and lunch: morning at Amber Fort as it opens, a cooking class in a haveli for lunch, then a rest.
- Printers and dinner: a morning with the block printers of Bagru, and a late-afternoon class that ends with dinner on the roof.
- Where to stay: Samode Haveli, inside the old city, or The Raj Palace, just beyond its northern walls, for the full haveli feeling.
In Udaipur
- The day: a morning at the City Palace, a home cooking class in the old city for lunch and a boat on Lake Pichola at sunset.
- Where to stay: Fateh Prakash Palace or Shiv Niwas Palace, within the palace complex.
In Marwar
- Two nights at Rohet Garh: a horse ride or village safari in the morning, and a lesson in the family kitchen in the afternoon.
- A whole journey: our Village Rajasthan journey of rawlas, forts and farms includes several kitchens like this.