From The Royal Rasoi: The Favourite Dishes Of The Bhopali Nawabs

Nine-year-old Alizeh is quite excited for the evening. Guests are coming over, and so is her cousin, Nael, who is the same age as her. What makes the evening even more special is the delicious Sheer Korma that the cook is preparing as dessert for the evening. The recipe that has been in the family for generations was passed down to her father’s great-great-grandmother, Nawab Sultan Jehan Begum Sahiba, the last female monarch of the erstwhile princely state of Bhopal.

Many of the dishes that the family often enjoys are, in fact, diligently preserved and lovingly replicated from the repository of legacy recipes of Nawabs of Bhopal. The cooks grind the saffron strands and cardamoms just enough till the fragrance impregnates the air. Then they pound away at the carefully selected cuts of meat with the least fat to tenderise it, the way it was done during the days when hunting was practised by the royals – the game meat was cooked soon after the hunt. 

Interestingly, unlike the cuisine of nearby regions that have Persian influence, the food of Bhopal Nawabs has an Afghan lineage with subtle fragrance-centric flavours and minimal use of spices. Bhopal came to be in the 11th century when the Parmar king Raja Bhoj ruled Malwa and built check dams and the largest artificial lake, Bhojtal. The city grew around the lake. After his death, his widow, Queen Kamalapati, to avenge her husband’s death, reached out to Afghan mercenary Dost Muhammad Khan, earlier a soldier in the Mughal army who became an assassin for hire as Mughal influence decreased after the death of Aurangzeb. The queen rewarded his services with a ‘jagir’ around Bhopal. Dost Muhammad later assimilated other Afghans, assumed the title of Nawab, and expanded and ruled the region. 

While the cultural exchange between the locals and the Afghans influenced the cuisine of the region, some of the preparations remained within the family. Compiled in a coffee table book, these preparations have now found a place in the menu served in the restaurants at Jehan Numa Palace and Jehan Numa Retreat, the family-owned luxury hotels. 

Built in 1890 by General Obaidullah Khan, commander-in-chief of the army of Bhopal state and second son of Sultan Jehan Begum, Jehan Numa Palace was renovated into a heritage hotel in 1983. The 12 acres of forested land, a little outside the city, once used for stables and fodder, was also later developed into a boutique hotel, Jehan Numa Retreat. A walk through the pristine white corridors of the Jehan Numa Palace brings history alive with black and white pictures of four Begums of Bhopal who ruled from 1819 to 1926. Faiz Rashid, the great-grandson of General Obaidullah Khan and the current owner of the palace, emphasises, “What makes our hotels unique is the menu. It is the same food, which we have grown up eating. The recipes are part of family legacy”.

In order to remain true to the recipes, the chefs at the hotels undergo rigorous training in the home kitchen of the family. Every small detail is taken into account, and every single ingredient goes into the preparation in the same order as in the generational recipe. “We even cook in the same kind of copper hammered ‘laagan’ or a shallow pot as it was done earlier. Slow cooking in copper utensils gives an earthy flavour to the dishes,” says Avinash Rawat, the head chef at Jehan Numa Retreat.

I sat chatting with Saleem Qureshi in a small open area among the trees lit with oil lamps and stars above, where the hotel curates bespoke dining experiences aptly named Under the Jamun Tree. Qureshi, a member of the royal family, shared his insights about the family food. “Filfora was a dish made from game meat when hunting was practised. Game meat does not have fat, so it was pounded to tenderise. Now, though we use mutton, we remove the fat and pound it with a pestle to recreate the original recipe.” Qureshi also shares some of the lost recipes of the days of yore, like the Parindey Me Parinda, made from game birds, where a smaller bird would go into a larger bird, which in turn would be stuffed into another much larger bird.

While many of the preparations remained of Afghan origin, the local food, however, also influenced the food of the Nawabs, like the Bhopali Style Chicken Rizala. “The Bhopali Rizala is quite different from Kolkata or Luckhnavi Rizala,” says Vincent, general manager at Retreat. “In the Bhopal method, the chicken is cooked along with coriander, which gives a beautiful, slightly fluorescent tinge to the gravy. Sultan Jehan Begum Sahiba liked eating different coloured food on different days. The greenish Bhopali Chicken Rizala was her favourite,” he adds. 

Another exclusive preparation that the family relishes and serves at Palace and Retreat is the Desi Gulab ki Kheer. “We grow desi gulab (local rose) on our land. The petals are plucked, washed, and sun-dried. The dried petals are coarsely ground before cooking in milk for Kheer,” says Faiz Rashid.

With local influence on certain preparations, different versions of dishes like Bhopali Murg Rizala or Shahi Tukda are served at other restaurants like Zaaiqa restaurant at Noor-Us-Sabah Palace and Filfora Restaurant of Bhopal. The difference, however, lies in welcoming the guests with a home-style cooked meal, and that is what the yesteryear Nawabs did by opening their hearth to all. 

Here are some of the family recipes straight from the heart of their kitchen! 

Sheer Korma

Recipe Information

Ingredients

Filfora (Coarsely Ground Mutton Gravy)

Recipe Information

Ingredients

• Mutton pasanda meat pounded with mortar and pestle 1kg/2.2lb
• Green coriander leaves chopped 5cups/300gm/11oz
• Mint (pudina) leaves chopped 4 cups/240 gm/9oz
• Green chillies chopped 250gm/9oz
• Fresh Ginger paste 2tsp/12 gm
• Fresh Garlic paste 2 tsp/12gm
• Finely chopped tomatoes 500 gm/1.1lb
• Yoghurt (dahi) 1 cup/250 gm/9oz
• Raw papaya ground to paste 50 gm/1 ¾ oz
• Vegetable oil 100ml/3 ½ fl oz
• Onions medium-sized, finely chopped 2
• Garam masala1 tsp//3gm
• Salt to taste

Preparation

Step 1

Mix coriander leaves, mint leaves, green chillies with ginger and garlic pastes and tomatoes. Add this mixture with yoghurt to the meat. Mix with hand and leave overnight in the refrigerator. If time is less, add raw papaya paste. This will tenderise the meat within three hours. 

Step 2

Heat oil in a pan, add onions and garam masala; sauté. Once brown, add the meat mixture and leave to cook on low heat for approximately 2 hours.

Serve with flatbread. Serves 6-7

Murg Bhopali Rizala

Recipe Information

Ingredients