Cuisine of Bihar

Bihari cuisine ( _hi. बिहारी खाना) is predominantly vegetarian. However, unlike Gujarat or some communities of south, non-vegetarian food is also quite acceptable even in traditional homes of Bihar. Some sects of Brahmins like the Maithil Brahmins have traditionally eaten some varieties of fish. Mutton or Goat meat is even used as Prasad in some type of pujas, like devi puja. Traditional Bihar society did not quite eat eggs and chicken, though other types of birds and fowls were highly acceptable. However, such distinctions are no longer current.

Staple food

As stated earlier, much of the food consumed by people in Bihar is vegetarian and very healthy. The staple food is "bhat, dal, roti, tarkari(vegetables) and achar", prepared basically from rice, lentils, wheat flour, vegetables, and pickle. They use uncooked sprouts soaked in water and consumed with choora bhunja and Makhana. The famous "jhal moori" (puffed rice with sprouts and other ingredients) is a famous snack. Traditionally, mustard oil and ghee have been the popular cooking medium. "Khichdi", the broth of rice and lentils, seasoned with spices, and served with several accompanying items like thick curd (yogurt), pickles (more than 5000 varieties of pickles are prepared by women in a year), papads, ghee, chokha (boiled mashed potatoes, seasoned with finely cut onions and green chilies), baigan ka chokha (baked and mashed eggplant with chillies, onion and mustard oil) and dhaniya ki chatni (coriander leaves mixed with garlic, tomato and chillies) constitutes lunch for most people of Bihar on Saturdays. A variety of food is available with each meal. Salad with cabbage, raw peas, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, coriander leaves, beetroot, carrot and fresh winter vegetables are served in huge thalis. Milk is boiled until it reduces by half and then thick curd is made from it. Different types of stuffed paratha are also common.

Also predominantly used in Bihar is Sattu (roasted chickpea flour). There are many other dishes made with sattu, like litti, Sattu ki Roti, etc. In rural areas of Bihar, doughed sattu is consumed with some salt and pickles.The state also believes in preserving food commodities for future use so many items are sun-dried and packed for use during periods of unavailability. Sukhauta can consist of sun-dried, boiled potatoes, cauliflowers and a variety of vegetables; Adauri and Tisiauri are sun-dried dumplings made from various flours.

Sweet delicacies

There is large variety of sweet delicacies. Unlike Oriya and Bengali sweets, which are soaked in syrups made of sugar and are therefore wet, sweets of Bihar are mostly dry. Some of them are Laktho, Khurma,Balushahi,Anarasa, Khaja, Motichoor ka Ladoo, Kala Jamun, Kesaria Peda, Parwal ka Mithai, Khubi ka Lai, Belgrami, Tilkut, ThekuaPadokkia and Chena Murki. Some of them owe their origin to towns in the vicinity of Patna: Khaja from Silao Nalanda, Ladoo from Maner, Kala Jamun from Vikram, Khubi ka Lai from Barh, Tilkut and Kesaria Peda from Gaya ,balushahi from Harnaut ,Chena Murki from Koelwar and Padokkia from THAWE.GOPALGANJ. Descendants of the original family members of the cooks, called halwais in the local language, have migrated to urban Patna and authentic sweet delicacies are now available in the city itself.Khaja, which originated in Deo Aurangabad, is a deep-fried flaky pastry soaked in sugar syrup to give a dry and crisp texture.Podokkia, is alike samosa but it prepaid from khooaa fried milk and with ras.Its sweet in taste and it is frequentlly eaten hot.

Other traditional snacks and savouries

There are several other traditional snacks and savouries:

* Pua, prepared from a mixture of powdered rice, milk, ghee (clarified butter), sugar and honey and its variant Malpua
* Pittha, steam cooked, mixture of powdered rice
* Chiwra, beaten rice, served with a coat of creamy curd and sugar or jaggery
* Makhana (a kind of water fruit) is prepared from lotus seeds and is taken puffed or as kheer, prepared with milk and sugar
* ] powdered baked gram, a high energy giving food usually mixed with water or with milk. Sometimes, sattu mixed with spices is used to prepare stuffed 'chapattis', locally called as 'makuni roti'.
* Litti/Choka, a fast food item that can be prepared with minimum of utensils by people who away on tour. It is prepared with Sattu and Wheat flour and taken with mashed potato and brinjals.
* Dhuska, a deep fried item prepared from a mixture of powdered rice and ghee but is salted
* Kadhi Bari, these fried soft dumplings made of besan (gram flour) are cooked in a spicy gravy of yogurt and besan. It goes very well over plain rice.
* Halwa, prepared by frying sooji(semolina) till reddish and then mixing sugar and boiling with water till thickening.
* Khaja is another sweet delicacy, a deep fried flaky pastry soaked in sugar syrup to give a dry and cisp texture,originated in deo aurangabad.

Non-vegetarian food

The distinctive Bihari flavor of non-vegetarian cooking finds mention in the memoirs of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who found it quite tasty. Forms of kebabs, mutton preparations and dishes prepared from various fowl and birds have a very distinctive flavor. Biharis are quite famous for their Behari Kebabs, another typical Bihari non-vegetarian dish. This dish was traditionally made from mutton and is eaten with roti, paratha or boiled rice. Recently, in fast food restaurants, these Behari Kebabs are also sold as Behari Kebab Rolls, which are essentially kebabs wrapped up in a paratha

Some Muslim families moved from Bihar to Pakistan during partition in 1947. The Bihari culture and their cuisines can be seen quite distinctively in Karachi, where there is a large Bihari population. Later on, a few of them immigrated to the US and Canada, taking with them their culture and cuisine.