A History of Mughal Cuisine through Cookbooks

During a course at the Smithsonian, I learnt about decoding the past using a cookbook. So it was particularly fun to see art-work from recipe-books from our country. It’s another thing that I really did feel like going back into the past to eat!  The earliest evidence of India’s culinary history dates back to a 12th century book from the Chalukya dynasty, though for this post, I will stick to Mughal cuisine and its roots. This, because it was the Mughal kitchen that changed the very way and average Indian thought about food. Under their patronage, culinary arts were illustrated beautifully and found place in the  calligraphed royal memoirs.

Mughal cuisine, however, finds its roots in the Delhi Sultanate, which takes us back to the 15th century manuscript, Ni’matnama (The Book of Delights). The most famous cook-book till date, it contains the recipes of the eccentric Sultan of Mandu (Madhya Pradesh), Ghiyath Shahi, collected and added to by his son and successor, Nasir Shah. The recipes include a variety of delicacies and epicurean delights, as well as providing remedies and aphrodisiacs for the Sultan and his court. It also includes important sections on the preparation of betel leaves as well as advice on the logistics of hunting expeditions and warfare.

Here are some recipes from the Ni’matnama ( the measures have been converted for ease):

Samosa [I think it’s equivalent to present-day Fried Momos / Wantons] :

*The method for samosas of tender meat of mountain sheep (parbatī) or of deer: mince (the meat) finely (f.3b) and add turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, coriander, cardamom and cloves and mix them together. *Flavour sweet-smelling ghee with asafoetida.
*When the ghee has become well-flavoured, put the mince in it and leave it so that it becomes well-cooked.
*Add lime juice and pepper and then put in a quarter of a sīr of dried ginger (zanjabīl) and one sīr of chopped onion and remove it.
*Add one rattī of camphor and one rattī of musk. Prepare a few large samosas and a few small ones the size of one mouthful.
*Having stuffed them with the mince, fry them in sweet-smelling ghee and, when they are to be eaten, sprinkle them with vinegar or lime juice.
*Serve them and eat them.

Pilaf and Saffron meat:

You will need:

*Wash the meat well and, having put sweet-smelling ghee into a cooking pot, put the meat into it.
*When the ghee is hot, flavour it with saffron, rosewater and camphor. Mix the meat with the saffron to flavour it and when it has become well-marinated, add a quantity of water.
*Chop cardamoms, cloves, coriander, fennel, cinnamon, cassia, cumin and fenugreek, tie them up in muslin and put them with the meat.
*Cook almonds, pine kernels, pistachios, and raisins in tamarind syrup and add them to the meat. Put in rosewater, camphor, musk and ambergris and serve it. By the same method cook partridge, quail, chicken and pigeon.

A Spice Mixture that Can be added to Any Dish

Four parts rosewater, ten parts white hibiscus, 20 parts cardamom, one part cloves and four parts mace

Sherbet Recipe

Another recipe for sherbet: mince coconut and leave it (to soak) in sweetened water. Strain off the coconut milk and, if desired, put the syrup in it and also mangoes if so wished. Add fresh ginger, onions, lime juice, cardamoms, cloves, pepper, turmeric and fenugreek and flavor it with asafoetida. Then drink it with bhāt [cooked rice or maize].

The uniqueness of the Ni’matnama lies in its form as well as its subject matter. The manuscript, preserved in the India Office Library in London, has fifty miniature paintings, and many of the faces in the paintings are painted in profile, as opposed to the Persian practice of painting in half-profile. These paintings represent some of the earliest paintings from Muslim courts of the Deccan and hence are early predecessors of numerous paintings of the Dakhni style from later periods. The text is written in bold naskh script, characteristic of Mandu calligraphy.

As far as content is concerned, the book lies outside the usual gamut of medieval Persian literature, which mostly comprises of political chronicles and pure fiction. As for the field pertaining to the history of cuisine is concerned, the Nimatnama is an invaluable source for obvious reasons. While other Persian sources mention feasts and banquets, and even food, in passing, this is the only text from the medieval period dedicated entirely to the subject.

The Ni’matnama also mentions the betel or “paan” and its advantages.

Mughal cuisine was shaped by all kinds of influences: Iranian, Afghani, and Persian, (because of the dynasty’s Central Asian roots) mixed in with Kashmiri, Punjabi and a touch of the Deccan. Each Emperor also had his favourites. Babur did not like Indian food when he arrived, preferring the fresh meat and fruits of his native Samarkand and created lots of kitchen-gardens. But he loved fish, which he did not get back home.

Humayun’s Iranian wife introduced sophistication into the Mughal kitchen with saffron and dry fruits in the first half of the 16th century, while Akbar — thanks to his many alliances — introduced the Indian flavours. In fact, Akbar was vegetarian three times a week, and had his own kitchen garden which he nourished with rosewater, so that the vegetables would smell fragrant when cooked. Shah Jahan is credited with adding new spices to the cuisine. Shortly after he shifted his capital from Agra to Shahjahanabad, he was informed that the drinking water in the new city was making his subjects sick. That’s when the king ordered that food be cooked with more haldi, red chillies, cumin and coriander, for their medicinal properties. European influences also made an appearance: apparently, Noor Jehan had curd set in seven moulds with rainbow-coloured fruit juices and garnished her dishes with floral patterns made with powdered and glazed rice paste! Aurangzeb, said to be the most devout of the emperors, was a vegetarian for most of his life.  The Rukat-e-Alamgiri, a book with letters from Aurangzeb to his son, show that the ruler loved Qubooli, a type of mega-biryani with rice, Bengal gram, died apricot, basil, almond and curd.

Despite the contributions of all Mughal Emperors and their love for food, it is only in Ain-i-Akbari (written by the court historian Abdul Fazl) that gives us a peek into 30 different recipes and royal-appetite. To appreciate and understand the Mughal recipes, here’s a cheat-sheet to the measures:

1 s (ser) is roughly 900g

1 m (misqal) is 6g.

1 Dam = 20g

Murg zamindoz, from Akbar’s era,  was an amalgamation of Akbar and his Rajput wife Jodha Bai’s cooking traditions. While the chicken, a Mughal delicacy is spiced, it was wrapped in a dough and cooked under the earth with some charcoal in the traditional Rajasthani technique of cooking vegetables.

Recipe for Zard Birinj 

Zard birinj. 10 s. of rice; 5 s. of sugarcandy; 3½ s. of g’hí; raisins, almonds, and pistachios, ½ s. of each; ¼ s. of salt; 1/8; s. of fresh ginger; 1½ dáms saffron, 2½ misqáls of cinnamon. This will make four ordinary dishes. Some make this dish with fewer spices, and even without any: and instead of without meat and sweets, they prepare it also with meat and salt. Read more recipes in Ain-i-Akbari.

The Nusḵẖa-i Shāhjahānī or the Nān u Namak records the recipes of dishes prepared in Emperor Shahjahan’s (r. 1627-1658) kitchen.

It contains ten chapters, on nān- hā (breads), āsh-hā (pottages), qalīyas and dopiyāzas (dressed meat dish- es), bhartas (also bhurta; mashes), zerbiryāns (a kind of layered rice-based dish), pulāʾo, kabābs, harīsas (savoury porridge), shishrangas and ḵẖāgīnas (omelette), and khichṛī. The last chapter covers murabbā (jams), achār (pickles), pūrī (fried bread), shīrīnī (sweets), ḥalwā (warm pudding) and finally some basic recipes for yoghurt, the preparation of panīr (Indian curd cheese) and for the colouring of butter and dough.

The Ḵẖulāṣat-i Mākūlāt u Mashrūbāt  from Audangzeb’s time (r. 1656-1707) is divided into 40 bābs (chapters) with each bāb devoted to a particular category of dishes. The first chapter is on various varieties of breads (nān and kulcha) and subsequent chapters deal with qalīyas and dopiyāzas, bhartas, kabābs, khichṛī, zerbiryāns, achār and various sweetmeats.  It includes many of the usual recipes for various varieties of breads, qalīyas, dopiyāzas, bhartas, kabābs, rice dishes such as tā̤ hirīs, pulāʾos, zerbiryāns, and khichṛīs, as well as ḵẖāgīnas, achārs, and ḥalwās.

A Khichdi recipe from Aurangzeb’s time:

…start with fried garlic, into which onion rings, cinnamon, and other spices are added and again fried. Then cumin is added, following which the whole mixture is removed from the heat. The dāl mūng (mungbean pulses) is then fried in that ghee, and the ghee is drained. Rice is added to the dāl (pulses or len- tils) and mixed well. The spice mixture mentioned earlier is added to this, along with hot water and ginger. Ghee is added and the dish is sealed and slow-cooked to finish.

#FunFact back when Chandni Chowk in Delhi was Shahjahanabad, the place had multiple Qahwa-shops. The elite would go for coffee almost everyday, and discuss poetry, politics, etc.

#FunFact2: Shah Jahan did not like to eat with the British merchants because they did not wash their hands before and after meals, drank water during the course of a meal and used tissue paper in the lavatory.

#FunFact3: Meals began with the recitation of the Bismillah-e Rahaman-e-Rahim — In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful. And they ended by Emperors prostrating themselves before God. In the zenana, the chief queen generally presided over the meal, though the harem residents were free to eat in their own quarters unless the emperor joined them on some special occasion. The ladies ended their meals with the exclamation, “Shukr Allah” Thanks be to God.