Cuisine of Rajasthan

Land of Princes, as Rajasthan is called, offers many fine gastronomic delights both within the palaces and outside. In the desert belt of Jaisalmer, Barmer and Bikaner, cooks use a minimum of water and prefer, instead, to use more milk, buttermilk and clarified butter. A distinct feature of Rajasthani cuisine is the Maheshwari cooking which involves the use of mango powder or amchur, a suitable substitute for tomatoes, scarce in the desert, and asafetida or hing, to enhance the taste in the absence of garlic and onions.  

Most Rajasthani cuisines use pure ghee as the medium of cooking. A favorite sweet dish called lapsi is prepared with broken wheat saut�ed in ghee and sweetened. Perhaps, the best known Rajasthani food is the combination of dal, bati and churma. Each region is distinguished by its popular sweet - Mawa Kachori from Jodhpur, Alwar ka Mawa, Malpuas from Pushkar, Rasgullas from Bikaner, and Ghevar from Jaipur. Though not many in number, the Rajasthani non-vegetarian dishes also have distinctive flavors.