Awadh and the Lucknow Table

Awadh is the central plain of the Ganges and Gomti in what is now Uttar Pradesh, and Lucknow became its capital when the Nawabs of Awadh, who ruled from the early eighteenth century, moved their court from Faizabad. The cooking that bears the name of Lucknow grew in the courts of those Nawabs, the last of whom, Wajid Ali Shah, was deposed by the British in 1856, and it rests on the Persianate kitchens that the Mughals had brought to northern India.

The Awadhi table is the table of a court, and its character is one of restraint and refinement rather than of heat. Where the food of the Punjab leans on the tandoor and on strong spicing, the Lucknow kitchen worked with slow, gentle cooking, with whole spices such as green cardamom Elettaria cardamomum and cassia Cinnamomum cassia, with yoghurt, with ghee, with saffron and with rose and kewra waters, so that the meat, the rice and the fat were carried by perfume rather than by pungency. Its masters, in the telling of J. Inder Singh Kalra in Prashad, are the cooks of the old families and of the court, whose craft was passed from hand to hand and who counted smoothness, balance and aroma as the measure of a dish. The method most closely tied to the name is dum, the sealing of a vessel so that its contents cook slowly in their own steam. The lid of the handi was closed with a band of dough, and the pot was set over a low fire with embers on the lid, so that the dish cooked gently and kept its aroma until the seal was broken at the table. Dum pukht is the name by which this style of cooking is known, and it governs the Lucknow biryani, in which marinated meat and part-cooked basmati Oryza sativa are layered and brought together, as well as the slow-cooked meats of the region. The repertoire of the Lucknow table is wide. It includes the kebabs for which the city is known, among them the galouti, said to be made so tender that it needs no chewing, and the kakori and the shami; the breads, among them the sheermal, the warqi paratha and the rumali roti; the korma, built on yoghurt, browned onion and spice; and the nihari and the paya of the morning table. Sweets and the end of the meal belong to it as well, with the kheer, the shahi tukda and the preparations of milk that the court kitchens prized. The Awadhi kitchen belongs to the larger Mughal inheritance, which Abul Fazl set down in the Ain-i-Akbari in about 1590 and which the courts of the north carried forward in their own way. After 1856 the court cooks dispersed, and the dishes passed into the households of the city and into the bazaar, where they continue; a Lucknow table of today still shows the court's preference for softness and perfume, and the later spread of the cooking beyond Uttar Pradesh came with the movement of its cooks across northern India.

A meal in the Awadhi manner opens with kebabs and bread, and proceeds to a rice dish or a korma, with a sweet of milk and saffron at its close. The taste sought is of fragrance and depth, with ghee, browned onion, cardamom, kewra and rose water carrying the dish, and with chilli kept in its place. The dishes are eaten with the breads of the city, and the sheermal and the rumali roti, rather than any sharpness, give the table its contrast.