These home chefs in Lucknow are keeping the fascinating world of Awadhi cuisine alive

Beyond the nalli nihari and chicken biryanis, the oft-ignored and stereotyped Awadhi cuisine is replete with stories, elaborate meals and well-kept family secrets

They say all histories eventually lead to food. With Awadhi cuisine, its multifaceted secrets stretch across homes, nations and even continents. The cuisine gained prominence under the patronage of the various nawabs of Awadh in Uttar Pradesh, the first of whom was of Persian origin. It was this Persian heritage that made its way into the various cooking styles that are employed to create the Awadhi magic.

But beyond the royal quarters of Lucknow, Awadhi cuisine is often confused with one of those endless variants of Mughlai food. Sheeba Iqbal, a 55-year-old who runs a home kitchen called Aab o Daana in her centuries-old haveli, says that there are barely any places even within Lucknow that have dedicated spaces for celebrating and promoting Awadhi cuisine except the annual Mahindra Sanatkada festival and Naimatkhana, which sells Awadhi cuisine from various home chefs.

“Our food has a lot to do with aroma and the slow preparation that goes into it,” says Iqbal. “The masalas are finely ground to a paste, refined through milk and then used to lend richness. After you have an Awadhi meal, you don’t feel bloated because it’s rich, not heavy.”

Sheer creativity and patience goes into creating dishes as varied as kaliya, a meat cooked with turmeric; different variants of korma cooked with yoghurt and fried onions; birahi roti cooked with stuffed dal in monsoon. “So, it’s not all non-vegetarian,” Iqbal clarifies. “There is also bhindi gosht and arvi gosht that are equally popular.”

Spreading the word

According to Askari Naqvi, the founder of Naimatkhana, the influence of vegetarian dishes in Awadhi cuisine can be credited to the presence of various communities that have settled in Lucknow. “It’s not just Muslims but Bengalis, Kayasth Brahmins and other communities have also contributed to Awadhi cuisine equally.”

The way Naqvi sees it, the biggest challenge for Awadhi cuisine’s nationwide acceptance is the lack of knowledge about it in the larger food community. “Everyone knows that the quality of the food is uncompromised because it’s literally coming from the homes but marketing remains the biggest challenge.”

He says that it helps when Bollywood celebrities tweet about Naimatkhana and the many home chefs selling their food. While it certainly drives traffic, the business model remains tourist-based—a dimension that often fluctuates.

“What separates our home chefs from a normal restaurant is we know for a fact that all those age-old techniques have been used,” he adds. “When you have a slow-cooked, dum pukht biryani in a restaurant, how do you know it’s really slow- cooked? There are no guarantees with restaurants.” Since most home chefs work on an order-first-based approach, Naqvi says that achieving a healthy “economy of scale” remains a challenge.

“When we work with home chefs, we have to come up with creative ways of ensuring that the food is fresh,” he says. “So in the lockdown, it would come half-cooked from them and then we would fully cook it to achieve that freshness.”

They source different dishes from different home chefs, too, thus dividing the load and ensuring efficiency. So patil kebabs and kakori kebabs might come from one and biryanis might come from another. But ultimately Naqvi describes them as “entrepreneurs” who are doing business and reviving Awadhi cuisine along the way. “We must understand that this is the food from the homes of Lucknow, not the markets of Lucknow,” he clarifies. “And the only way you can have food from the homes of the city is by going into those homes or getting them to you.”

Preserving heritage

Sufiya Kidwai, a 72-year-old home chef in Lucknow, says that there are certain dishes that she will never sell. These are dishes that have been nurtured in her family for years, a crucible of memories, ancestral in scope and personal in meaning.

“I’ll happily share kebabs, koftas, pulao and the works but not my family dishes such as uzbaki which is made with meat and shallots, or rasbhari keema which is a rich variety of minced meat, to name a few.” Beyond preserving her family heritage, Kidwai says that one of the other reasons she is wary of sharing her recipes–or the food–with others is because going by her past experiences, people botch them up.

“I don’t eat non-vegetarian food outside,” she says. “All of us have different ways of approaching Awadhi cuisine and that’s the beauty of it. So in my case, I don’t add any artificial fragrances like kewra or rose water in the food but let the natural fragrances of spices such as javitri surface.”

Beyond the home chefs, Lucknow is an island of many culinary surprises, most of them tucked away in quaint lanes while others hidden in plain sight. For Sheeba Iqbal, it’s the biryani at Idrees, kebabs at Tundaay, the good ol’ chai with bun maska at Sharma and a “whiff of Awadhi cuisine” at Dastarkhwan. For Naqvi, Sassy Canteen provides a refreshing change in the form of world cuisine.

But it’s always best to hit the streets after you’re done with the more refined joys that the food of the home chefs offers. At Akbari Darwaza, malai makhan will stay on your taste buds for a day after a kachori breakfast at Netram’s, or if you’re feeling too special, the famous Basket Chaat at Royal Café in Hazratganj is your best bet.

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