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LoginThe History Of The Yakhni Pulao
6 Min
17/03/20266 Min17/03/2026
Yakhni pulao is not biryani, even though the two look suspiciously similar. The Rampuris will make that very clear. It is rice slow-cooked in meat broth, yakhni, with whole spices, and it is the defining dish of a princely state that once fed 200-course banquets to its Nawabs. The pulao traces its roots to medieval Persia, was finessed in the Mughal kitchen and finally settled firmly in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, where khansamas competed to please royals and recipes were guarded as state secrets. This is the dish's full history.
The Rampuris love their pulao and turn up their noses at the richer, spicier version called biryani, which is rebuffed as a soulless mixture of qorma curry and boiled rice. That is not a small statement to make towards a dish that thousands claim as their favourite. It tells you everything about how the people of Rampur relate to their food and how proud they are about their culinary history—a quiet pride that resists outside influence. At the centre of that pride sits yakhni pulao, a dish built on a single principle of rice cooked in meat stock.
Yakhni was first prepared in medieval Persia as a beef stew. It got its name from the covered clay pot in which it was first prepared. The Persian word yakhni literally means ‘store of food’. From there, different varieties of this dish spread eastwards to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and, much later, to South Asia, and westwards to the Ottoman Empire, reaching the Levant, Egypt, Libya, and the Balkans. By the time it arrived in India, yakhni had evolved. The earliest reported documentation was discovered in Ain-i-Akbari, the account of Emperor Akbar's reign.
The cuisine and food habits of the Indians, especially in the north, were vastly influenced by the Mughal rulers. Yakhni is a yoghurt saffron-based mutton broth. The broth is made using mutton and whole spices like coriander seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, black cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, and bay leaves, which are tied in a potli, which the West calls bouquet garni.
The technique of the potli, of tying whole spices in muslin cloth so they infuse the stock without scattering into the rice, is one of the defining moves in yakhni pulao. It is said that Persian pilafs that Indians know as pulao, met the rich, spicy Mughal dishes in the kitchens of Emperors Humayun and Akbar to create the biryani. But yakhni pulao stayed closer to its Persian ancestor.
Rampur, a princely state established by Rohilla Pathans in 1774, became the cultural node of north Indian Muslim culture under the patronage of its ruling Nawabs. The city sits roughly 250 kilometres from Delhi, and its position between the capital and Awadh made it a haven for displaced artists, poets, musicians, and cooks after the 1857 revolt.
During the Mutiny of 1857, the destruction of the Awadh empire triggered the exodus of calligraphers, poets, musicians, and khansamas to Rampur, all of whom were patronised by the Nawabs. Unsurprisingly, their influence extended to the food too, leading to the introduction of rich foods like bakarkhani, sheermal, and qormas.
The Rampuri kitchen was already built on Afghan and Mughal foundations. The post-1857 arrivals from Awadh and Delhi were layered in refinement and range. Nawab Sayed Hamid Ali Khan recruited 150 khansamahs across three main kitchens – the Indian, the English, and the sweetmeat kitchen – and each khansamah was a specialist in only one dish.
While yakhni pulao is also made in Lucknow, the Rampuri version is slightly different. The Rampuri style layers saffron and milk, lemon juice, and meat. The Lucknow version does not use mint, coriander, or ghee, and its yakhni is lighter. These are not small differences and delineate two entirely distinct culinary principles sitting within the same dish name.
The distinction in cooking technique is also why it differs from biryani. The base for yakhni pulao is the boiled meat stock, which is closer to the Persian version. Biryani, on the other hand, consists of layering spicy cooked meat curry with parboiled rice. The Rampuri position is that this matters enormously, and they are correct.
The Nawabs loved good food and would take their khansamas along during their travels to other royal courts. That is how the royal cooks imbibed various techniques and also imparted their knowledge to the other courts. The khansama who would create something unique was handsomely rewarded, and that is how there is so much variety in the cuisine.
The royal kitchens of Rampur held regular competitions to boost innovation among the chefs. When a royal family member was prescribed ginger for good health, the cooks came up with a ginger halwa. When neem was recommended, they came up with a neem leaf halwa. The culture of the kitchen was built on constant problem-solving for an impossibly demanding audience.
The khansamas were reluctant to share the finer points of a recipe even with their own sons, fearing that the young ones would take over their place. The attitude of reticence in sharing recipes, combined with sons of chefs taking up other professions and the lack of written documentation, continued beyond the princely era and culminated in the loss of some famed dishes by the 1960s. Yakhni pulao, however, survived the disappearing act!
The authentic traditional recipes of Rampuri cuisine are preserved in various manuscripts, written by the cooks or khansamas, at the Rampur Raza Library. From yakhni pulao and taar gosht to various types of halwa, these Rampuri foods have a distinct character, still majorly influenced by Mughlai, Awadhi, Central Asian, and Rajput food cultures.
The grand repertoire of fifty-odd styles of the pulao in the manuscript is very intriguing, ranging from the grand Pulao Shahjahani and the sweet pulao called mutanjan pulao to the sheer shakkar pulao, the humble ananas pulao and imli pulao. Most Rampuri homes today only know one style of yakhni pulao. The manuscripts hold the rest of it.
The dish has moved beyond Rampur and exists as a variation of the original, with chicken versions now sitting alongside the original mutton in restaurants and homes. But the core of it – rice in stock, whole spices in a potli, no layering, no heavy masala – remains intact wherever the dish is made with any seriousness.
