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6 Min
21/11/2025
Ever wondered what it feels like to taste history in real time? Jaipur’s royal kitchens have the answers. From a bygone era, when the local hunt made it to the dining table, to today, when mutton and lamb meats can be bought from a store, the dishes that make up Rajasthani cuisine marry flavour with variety..
When thinking about Rajasthan, what pops up in the mind’s eye is opulent palaces and sweeping archways of the state’s royal past. In these halls and kitchens, once wafted delicious aromas that filled the streets and homes of Rajasthan today. While Rajasthani cuisine has famous vegetarian fares like dal bati churma and gatte ki sabzi, there are traditional non-vegetarian items too because Rajputs were predominantly non-vegetarian. While the royal hunters have long gone by, their favoured dishes (hint: laal maas) are here to stay. So, here’s a little history of the royal dishes of this desert state.
Dal bati churma consists of dough balls (bati), coated in ghee, and served with spiced lentil curry (dal), and powdered cereal (churma). An iconic dish from Rajasthan, this dish did not start out in royal kitchens, even though it did find its way to them later on. It started with the simple ‘bati’: dough balls that were buried in a layer of sand in the desert that soldiers would dig out once they returned home later that night. The sun would bake these dough balls into the predecessor of the ‘bati’. These baked dough balls would be coated in ghee and eaten with buttermilk or curd. The royal part comes in with the advent of the Gupta Empire, when they brought in their fondness for panchmel dal made with five different kinds of lentils. The churma came soon after, with sugarcane juice accidentally being spilt on the batis, and it came to be loved that way.
Laal maas, meaning ‘red meat’, is a traditional Rajasthani mutton curry cooked with Mathania red chillies, garlic, and yoghurt. Its origins lie in the royal hunting camps of Rajput kings, particularly in Mewar and Marwar, where game meat like deer, hare or wild boar was slow-cooked in spicy gravies. This all traces its roots to the 10th century, when water scarcity made it difficult to grow vegetables, so meat was a natural choice. The chillies masked the meat’s strong odour and were cooked in clay pots over an open fire. Once a hunting-camp dish, it evolved into a royal speciality, now served across the state from small eateries to luxury hotels.
The local produce did not yield vegetables like the fertile plains of the north, so ingenuity created this iconic dish. Gatte ki sabzi was made with the abundantly available besan or gram flour. It’s a vegetarian dish featuring gram-flour dumplings cooked in spiced yoghurt gravy. It became a staple in royal vegetarian households and is still part of royal thalis served at palace hotels in Jaipur and Jodhpur. It originated in the Marwar region of the Western region of the state, and today, the Marwari community cannot do without this dish on special occasions.
As the name suggests, the dish’s name, safed maas, means ‘white meat’. It is mostly associated with Mewar and Jaipur, with the royal courts of the regions. This dish also goes by the name of royal lamb korma. The whiteness comes from the use of nut paste, mostly using cashews and almonds, milk, yoghurt, and cream. Safed maas is also a slow-cooked dish, which was prepared mostly during special occasions – when the Rajputs went out in the wilderness to hunt. Unlike jungli maas, this dish was not prepared out in the wild, and despite its milder spices, it is quite a delicacy.
Beyond laal maas, there are other meat dishes from Rajasthan too! Mohan maas is one of them, made with milder spices. It was prepared to be served in royal courts and is associated with Rajwadi cuisine. It mixes the elements of laal maas and safed maas, so you get the best of both. These days, it uses mutton or lamb, slow-cooked in a gravy of milk or curd, dry fruits, spices like cinnamon and cardamom, and herbs. It is said that laal maas was cooked by the men and also served by them, so women needed their own meat dish; mohan maas was the answer.
Jungli maas, literally meaning ‘wild meat,’ has direct origins in the hunting camps of Rajput royalty. It traces its roots to the period when Rajput kings hunted game such as deer and wild boar. The meat was not brought back home but cooked in the wilderness itself, hence the name. It looks a lot like laal maas because the ingredients are similar – the meat was cooked over open fires with just ghee, red chillies, and salt. The dish was designed for sustenance during hunts rather than elaborate feasts. When adapted in palace kitchens, mutton replaced game meat (laal maas is the elaborate version of this bush dish).
Associated with the monsoon festivals of Teej and Raksha Bandhan, ghevar is quintessentially Rajasthani, with the dessert originating in the royal kitchens of the state, particularly Jaipur and Udaipur. This dessert is disc-shaped and made from a batter of flour and ghee, repeatedly poured into a pot of hot ghee, and deep-fried to yield a honeycomb structure. These discs are soaked in sugar syrup, and then often topped with saffron, nuts and rabri. Its intricate technique and presentation were intentional, especially the use of ghee, to make it the perfect dessert for festive occasions of Rajasthani palace cuisine.
Jaipur’s royal cuisine is a journey through its history, culture, and the ingenuity of Rajasthan’s kitchens. From the fiery laal maas to the delicate ghevar, each dish tells a story of survival, celebration, and royal indulgence. Sampling these flavours is not just a culinary experience; it’s stepping into the opulent world of Rajput palaces and desert traditions, where every bite carries the legacy of kings and commoners alike.