19 Old And Lost Recipes Of India (2024)

Everyone loves to explore what history has to offer. Indian food is influencedby religion, cultural choices and traditions. India is not just culturally rich but rich in food, spices and flavors too. With the passing times there are some awesome food recipes that are not passed on. As a traveller you might fall in love with some of these old dishes offered in India.In spirit of knowing about traditional dishes in India, which were extravagant and a delight to the senses, we are trying to recollect the lost recipes to preserve it for coming generations.

Checkout this list of 19 Old and Lost recipes of India

1. Parinde main Parinda: Uttar Pradesh

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Parinde main parinda looks like this rich extravagant dish, which weighs down the table as you keep it. Quite a lot of work goes into the preparation of this dish. It is a rendition of the bigger roast, that was basically made with whole camel, stuffed with smaller animals, one inside the other, till the smallest cavity fills with a boiled egg.It is made with duck, chicken, quail and a boiled egg. Each bird was prepared and marinated separately and differently. The flavor of each is retained while they come out beautifully in culinary nirvana.

2. Shufta Kanaguchhi: Jammu and Kashmir

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Here is dish which has the exclusive and precious morel mushrooms as an ingredient. This dish is basically all dry fruits sweetened gracefully. Kashmiri Shufta is one of the few sweet dishes from Srinagar. This dish is paradise in a bowl. It is a thick concoction of cottage cheese, dry fruits, saffron, milk, desi ghee and morel mushrooms.This dish was the invasion by Timur in 15th century that left a legacy of Kashmiri cuisine.

3. Phulkari Pulao: from Punjab

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Move over lubricant laced hearty dishes, here’s a dish prepared from four different variety of rice. It’s called ‘Phulkari Pulao’, which is a mix of a variety of rice. This is refreshing since traditional pulao is increasingly giving way to biryani. Nice to know the hearty Punjab is varied too. You can try this recipe (in Hindi).

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4. Jadoh: a Dish from North-East India

Jadoh is a Khasi delicacy from Meghalaya, with rice as its basic ingredient. It’s got pork, rice, herbs and is richly garnished with cilantro. Served simmered and savory! Jadohis one of the recipes from Meghalayawhich is on the verge of loss.

5. Tit-Koh: Tamil Nadu

This is a refreshing dish with freshness of coconut water, fish sauce and honey. It has the richness of pork and caramel. Garnished and sprinkled with red chillies on top. Checkout recipe forTit-Kohhere.

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6. Chhena Poda: Odisha

Here is a creamy rich dish made of ricotta cheese, sugar and brown sugar. With the crunch of roasted cashew nuts and raisins. Sometimes, jaggery was also used to make it. Cooked hot and served cold, fresh and slightly moist.Chhena Poda originated in the town of Nayagarh in the first half of the twentieth century.

7. Kalmi Saag: West Bengal

Kalmi Saag is a leafy vegetable that is available mostly in summers. It is grown in the wetlands and this recipe has very cooling effects on the body. Very simple and basic to cook, with the only other vegetable to accompany being onion.

8. Ratalachya Gharya: Maharashtra

This one is a traditional dish of the Maharashtrian food legacy. It looks like stuffed paratha. It’s got sweet potato for stuffing and the highlight being that it’s served with spicy mirchi cha thecha. Check out the recipe for Ratalyachya Gharyahere.

9. Saasni Machi: Gujarat

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This dish is a conglomeration of Gujarati and Parsi flavors. It’s basically a white, egg and riceflour based sauce. Only white fish like pomfret is used to make this dish. It also contains some local seasonal vegetables which are hard to come by now.

10. Lehsun ki kheer: Rajasthan

Here is an exotic sweet dish with goodness of khoya, milk, dryfruits and, wait-for-it, garlic! Yes. They had a kheer made out of garlic. Absolutely sumptuous and thick, served cold and in perfection with rich desi ghee for preparation. Try this recipe here.

11. Crab Curry: Bihar

Crab recipes are just as tricky and hard to come by as they are delicious. This rich and authentic recipe was however, very simple to cook. Novel how a state that boasts of rich vegetarian dishes had a crab based dish as its speciality once.

12. Gahat ki Daal: Uttarakhand

Gahat is a lesser known bean. It was popularly consumed as sprouts. It has a lot of health benefits too. Daal prepared from gahat was hence supposed to keep the body warm, with simple basic flavors of herbs and spices.

13. Kagzi Egg Tadka Daal: Arunachal Pradesh

This is a yummy recipe of Arunachal, which may be unusual for others but quite simple to prepare. Its a mixture of moong daal and masoor daal. Along with onions, tomatoes and an array of spices.

14. Aktori: Himachal Pradesh

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Akotri is a typical sweet delicacy of the Northern Hills. It hails the festivities and is prepared on special occasions. Basically a cake made with buckwheat mixed with wheat. It’s as earthly and soft as it looks.

15. Saag Gosht: Haryana

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A flavorful and nutritious, at the same time hearty dish. Usually served in supper parties. Particularly preferred are the boneless lamb shoulders for this dish. We heard of butter and chicken, but this is novel!

16. Iromba(Eromba): Manipur

This dish is mostly known for its pungent taste. Even the ingredients are unique, what with fermented fish, bamboo shoots and boiled vegetables, all cooked in chilli paste.

17. Tavsali (Goan Cucumber Cake)

This is a traditional recipe from the Goan belt and is basically a cucumber cake. The best part about it is that the cake is steamed instead of baking it. This dish was traditionally cooked with yellow cucumber but the regular or long dark green cucumbers can also be used to prepare it.

This dish is not just sweet but extremely healthy in nature too.

18. Ball Curry: Anglo Indian

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This Anglo-Indian recipe also has Portuguese flavors. It’s spicy and yet tangy, served with rich coconut rice. Ball curry is a spicy recipe with mutton as its base of meat. An absolute treat to the senses!

19. Puduch*erry

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Puduch*erry is famous for blending cooking styles with French and Vietnamese. This one particular dish which is literally known to one old lady in town is a coming together of pork, reduced in jaggery and topped off with green chillies. People of the community have almost forgotten about this dish, so much so that even the name of this dish couldn’t be traced!

Hope this journey towards culinary nirvana was as insightful as it was savory!

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