A journey to Rajasthan with Vivek Singh

'The people and chefs are incredibly resourceful. They have very few ingredients – onion, some dried vegetables and lentils, yoghurt, very basic spices, some chilli – and with this they are able to create so many different types of dishes, over and over again. People learn to adapt. Goat milk is used in the region, as is goat meat. When you have less vegetation and lead a nomadic lifestyle, moving around with big herds of cattle is very complicated. But goats are more easily manageable, they don't need much grass and can nibble on any roots, so they require less space, less effort, less looking after. Ghee is also commonly used in Rajasthani cooking; it is an ultra clarified butter that is cooked for much longer, until it has absolutely no water or moisture left in it. Properly made ghee lasts forever, it never goes off, so when you're living outside with little refrigeration, ghee is a very reliable cooking ingredient.'

The Rajput warriors loved hunting game, so there is a long tradition of cooking these meats in Rajasthan. More common meats, poultry and some freshwater fish are also used, but Singh says 'equally, Rajasthan has a very rich and diverse tradition of vegetarian cuisine, with hundreds of varieties of dishes from very few ingredients.' The Marwari people, themselves strict vegetarians, are a trading community that originated in Rajasthan. Singh tells us: 'There is a saying in India, 'You will be able to find the Marwari even where a bullock car can't reach', meaning where there is no access and no road. These traders have excellent business sense and spread themselves all over the country. When these people travelled in the olden days, often by camel, they were away from home for long periods of time and would miss their home-cooked food. Their eating houses, known as Marwari bhojnalaya, sprung up all along the path of their trading routes, which in practice was almost everywhere, bringing their simple, inexpensive, meat-free cuisine to every part of India.'

Singh tells us that the food of the region is savoury, spicy and sour, with a lot of chilli typically used. He cooked us two dishes to showcase the delights of this cuisine – one featuring rabbit, a meal with its roots in the nomadic warriors of yesteryear; and one vegetarian, a popular street snack in Rajasthan. 'Khad khargosh is a spiced rabbit leg, wrapped in bread. In the past, when hunters would kill a rabbit or hare, they would season it with plenty of spices, like garam masala or cloves, or tenderise it with something like papaya juice. They would then wrap the meat in bread, wrap that parcel in leaves and cover the whole thing with clay. They would dig a hole in the desert and bury this package, returning after a hunting expedition to find the whole thing baked and cooked through in the heat of the sand. Through the clay, the leaves and the bread, the rabbit is baked long and slow. This dish shows the ingenuity and adaptability of these people, and their spirit of hunting and living off the land.'