Hyderabad, the so-called 'City of Pearls' was home to a Mughal dynasty who accumulated unimaginable wealth from the diamond trade (in the 1930's the Nizam of Hyderabad was estimated to be one of the wealthiest people who ever lived) and the family left the city with lots of elegant palaces, mosques and monuments, but it's also full of all the colour and chaos of South India.

 

 

This means the local food combines the refined courtly cooking of the Mughal North (all those rich meat curries, fragrant pilaus and buttery naan breads) together with the spicy vegetarian cooking of the South with lots of lentils, rice and fresh vegetables generously seasoned with lots of tamarind and chilli. Put simply - it's pretty good food here!

These rich Mughal dishes were all good but it was the local vegetarian cooking that was the big surprise for me. All that tamarind, pepper and chilli means that many dishes are EXTREMELY hot and sour but those seasonings really bring the food alive.

Andhran thali ; Cauliflower 65 closeup (mental note: we really need to make some of this in one of our veggie curry recipes)

 

A typical Andhran thali- you get a selection of different curries with rice, pooris, chutneys and pickles often served on a banana leaf that gets thrown out at the end of the meal. There's always a thick Dahl(usually made sour with tamarind and tomatoes), a thinner sambaror Rasam soup, a stir-fried dish of cabbage plus maybe some greens or aubergine. One of the (many!) brown dishes at the top is something called cauliflower 65 - I've got no idea why it's called that but it's basically deep fried cauliflower coated in chilli batter and served with curry leaves. It's unbelievably delicious and even cauliflower haters would be converted by this!

The locals are famous for their pickles and chutneys, but they also use dry roasted podi powders as a seasoning for their food which were a new discovery for me. The podi's are made by dry-roasting various lentils, nuts, seeds and spices then grinding them up to make a powder. You then sprinkle it onto rice and mix in a little ghee or yoghurt - it's a bit like an Indian version of dukkah (the Egyptian blend of roasted nuts and seeds that's used as a snack with flatbreads dipped in olive oil).

Podi powders sprinkled over an Idli(a kind of steamed rice flour dough) for breakfast with a couple of chutneys

The favourite local street snack after dark is Mirch Bhajiye (deep-fried green chilli in chickpea batter)

Cooks in Hyderabad use lots of sesame and peanuts and the sauce above is very similar to a satay sauce from South East Asia but made sourer with more tamarind and less sugar which I was really suprised to see. The curry above it is made from goats brain (God knows what I was thinking there...... it was a bit like a spicy scrambled egg - interesting in an "I will never order this again" sort of way)

*add masala dosa vid

The local version of masala dosa - a kind of rice pancake stuffed with potato curry. In the Hyderabad version they go slightly mental with the butter then loads of spicy chilli masala powder, chopped onion, fresh coriander, tomatoes then top it off with a grating of cheese! It makes a pretty amazing breakfast.

 

A Hyderabadi spicery and his special Biryani masala made to order - he puts in lots of cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon, cassia buds, royal cumin, green cardamon and star anise then rolls it all in newspaper for you to take home. It was interesting to see how many cloves and bay leaves he used, plus we really need to add a couple of star anise to our blend!! One dish that really stood out for me was the classic vegetarian dish of the region - the brilliantly named Bisi bele bhaat. It's a mix of vegetables, rice and lentils cooked together a bit like an India risotto and flavoured with lots of tamarind, chilli, pepper and toasted dahl.

To make it you need to boil together mixed vegetables - diced carrot, onion, beans, potato with a handful of red lentils plus 1tsp turmeric and a pinch of asafoetida. Meanwhile roast a handful of dry lentils, 1tbsp coriander seeds, a couple of cinnamon quills, a few cloves, peppercorns, chillies, dry coconut, fenugreek seeds and poppy seeds to make a toasty crunchy masala powder. Once the lentils are nearly cooked add 300g basmati rice and plenty of the masala powder, plus lots of tamarind, salt and sugar. Cook until you've got a texture like risotto then serve with salad (plus I added an extra tamarind sauce on the side which was pretty good - a bit like pouring brown sauce over it!)

Thanks to chef Mandaar, Smita and my friend Jonty who's incredibly knowledgable and also runs very good food tours of many India cities which are really worth doing if you ever visit India