Mattha
Mattha: curd whisked thin with cold water, salted and spiced with roasted cumin and green chilli. The everyday summer buttermilk of the eastern plain.
Gangetic Heartland
Recipes from eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. An austere vegetarian tradition built on mustard oil, roasted gram flour, and sun-dried lentil cakes – earthy, pungent, and largely unknown outside the region.
Banarasi Lassi
Banarasi lassi: set curd whipped thick, spooned into a clay kulhad and buried under malai, rabri and pistachio. Not the pourable Punjabi drink.
Bel ka Sharbat
Bel ka sharbat: wood apple pulp soaked, mashed and strained, then taken savoury-sour with roasted cumin, black salt and chaat masala. Bihar’s summer drink.
Sattu ka Sharbat
Sattu ka sharbat: roasted black chickpea flour in cold water, savoury with black salt, cumin and green chilli, or sweet with jaggery. Bihar’s field drink.
Gur ka Pua
Gur ka pua: wheat flour batter sweetened with cane jaggery and fried in ghee until lacy at the edge and chewy within. Bihar’s Holi sweet, never syruped.
Pedakiya
Pedakiya: half-moon pastries filled with khoya, coconut and cardamom, fried in ghee and left unsyruped. Bihar makes them for Teej, not Holi.
Makhana Kheer
Makhana kheer: fox nuts from Mithila’s ponds roasted in ghee, half crushed into reducing milk and half left whole. The kheer that can be eaten on a fast day.
Parwal ki Mithai
Parwal ki mithai: pointed gourd hollowed, simmered in syrup until translucent, and stuffed with sweetened khoya. A vegetable turned into mithai.
Launglata
Launglata: thin dough parcels filled with khoya and dry fruit, pinned shut with a whole clove, fried in ghee and steeped in syrup. Uniquely Banarasi.