Page 171 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - India

INTRODUCING CENTR AL INDIA  169

Bihar & Jharkhand
An abundance of fruits and
vegetables and a simple style
make Bihar’s cuisine special.
A popular ingredient is sattu
(roasted chickpea flour), which
is energy-giving and nutritious.
It can be made into drinks,
breads or mixed with wheat,
potatoes and mashed
aubergine (eggplant).
The tribes of Jharkhand eat
cereals and a curry of boiled
A roadside stall in Agra selling a selection of fresh vegetables vegetables, tubers or edible
roots, lamb and chillies. A
Rice is the staple, and the food is buzzing until midnight. Here, favourite ingredient is the flower
cooked in either ghee or mustard visitors can savour bhutta ri kees of the mahua (Madhuca indica)
oil. A popular spice in this area is (grated corn cooked in ghee, tree which has hallucinogenic
bhanga or hemp seeds. milk and spices) or drink the properties. It is used to flavour
cooling Malwa kairi pana, (fresh rice in asur kichdi.
mango juice). Breads include
Madhya Pradesh & baati and bafla, both made from
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wheat and shaped into balls.
The food of Madhya Pradesh Baati is roasted and eaten with Aloo dum Banarsi Spicy
is as varied as the region. The lentils, while bafla is fried in ghee. potatoes cooked with cottage
cheese, nuts and raisins.
princely states of Bhopal and
Gwalior developed a distinctive Kele ke kofta Green bananas
mashed, made into balls and
cuisine that can be sampled cooked in a lightly spiced
in Gwalior’s barbat (coriander yoghurt sauce.
cilantro-flavoured mutton curry),
or Bhopal’s rizala (chicken with Kurwai biryani Steaks are
used instead of pieces of
yoghurt, green chillies and mutton in this rice dish, a
coriander). A gourmet maharaja speciality of Madhya Pradesh.
from the small state of Sailana Mawa-bati A gulab jamun
even produced his own (deep-fried milk and flour
cook book, The Cooking Delights dumpling), filled with nuts.
of the Maharajas, with recipes Musallam raan Leg of lamb
culled from royal kitchens. roasted with various spices.
The Malwa Plateau and the Shabdeg A classic mutton
city of Indore have a wide array dish slow-cooked with turnips
of savouries, sweets and thirst- Paan or betel leaf, often eaten as a and flavoured with spices.
quenchers that keep the city digestive after a meal

Mutton korma has pieces of Okra is a favourite summer Shahi tukra is a royal bread
mutton in a yoghurt- and vegetable, served stuffed pudding in a rich sauce of
saffron- sauce, flavoured with and fried or cooked in a thickened milk, garnished
cloves and cardamom. yoghurt sauce. with sliced almonds.

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