Telangana Cuisine

Telangana has two kitchens. Hyderabad's is the rich, slow-cooked food of the Nizams' court, where Mughlai and Persian cooking met Telugu spices. The villages of Telangana eat simpler, fiery food built on millets, rice, tamarind and red chilli.

Hyderabadi cuisine

Hyderabadi food is famous for its rich and aromatic nature, with a liberal use of spices and ghee. It is especially known for its meat dishes, and mutton is the most widely used meat. This style of cooking developed under the Asaf Jahi Nizams, blending Mughlai flavours with the spices of the Deccan.

Hyderabadi biryani

The best known dish of Hyderabad is the biryani. In the kachchi (raw) style, marinated meat and partly cooked rice are layered and sealed in a pot with dough, then cooked slowly on dum so the rice takes in the flavour of the meat, saffron and fried onions. It is served with mirchi ka salan (chillies in a peanut and sesame gravy) and dahi chutney.

Haleem

Haleem is wheat, lentils and meat pounded together and cooked for hours into a thick, spiced porridge, topped with fried onions, ghee and lime. It is the dish of the month of Ramzan, sold in the evenings after the fast is broken. Hyderabadi haleem was the first meat dish in India to get a geographical indication tag, in 2010.

Other dishes

Kababs of many kinds, kormas of meat or vegetables in creamy gravies, lukhmi (a savoury meat pastry), nahari (slow-cooked lamb trotters eaten at breakfast), paya, and rumali roti, bread as thin as a handkerchief, are all part of the Hyderabadi table. For vegetarians there is bagara baingan, small brinjals in a rich gravy of peanuts, sesame and tamarind, tomato kut, and dahi vadas.

Sweets

Double ka meetha is a bread pudding soaked in milk and sugar and topped with nuts; qubani ka meetha is a dessert of stewed dried apricots served with cream; and sheer khurma, vermicelli cooked in milk with dates and dried fruit, is served on Id-ul-Fitr.

Irani chai

The Irani cafes of Hyderabad, opened by Persian immigrants in the early twentieth century, serve strong, milky Irani chai with Osmania biscuits, a lightly salted butter biscuit named after the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan.

Telangana home food

Village food in Telangana is hearty and spicy. Jonna rotte (sorghum flatbread) and sajja rotte (pearl millet) are eaten with chutneys and curries, and ragi (finger millet) appears as ambali, a cooling drink. Sarva pindi is a crisp pancake of rice flour, chana dal, peanuts, sesame and green chilli cooked in a heavy pan, and sakinalu are spiral rice-flour snacks made for Makar Sankranti.

Pachi pulusu is an uncooked tamarind soup with onions and chillies, eaten in summer. Gongura (sorrel leaves) is used in pickles and in gongura mamsam, mutton with sorrel. Natukodi pulusu, a country chicken curry, and fish curries from the many tanks and reservoirs are favourites. Malidalu, made of crushed roti, jaggery and ghee, is offered during Bathukamma.