WEB DESK: The modern Indian restaurant of the Taj mahal Hotel of New Delhi is recreating the famous Indian delicacies for a food festival that were once rejoiced by the royal families of Kashmir, Travancore, Hyderabad and Rajasthan.

“We wanted to give flavors of the royals to our customers. When I was in Hyderabad, I did a lot of research where I learnt from the royal family of Nizams. We have added our own elements as well to the dishes,” added the chef.

The gastronomic voyage began with duo of chicken and lamb, Tujji chicken and Lahabi Kebab. They were very meaty, but one can get a good dose of greens in the form of coriander, chilli and mint in the chicken appetizer, served with crisp bread at the bottom. The kebab also had a strong yogurt flavor.

Chef told that back then the royals had time, money and leisure to make such delicacies. If rough speculations are made, may be it took them about three to four hours to prepare a special meal.

He told about a dish, “Saada aash” that was so much astonishing. He said, “The soup is to generate heat in the body, so we give small portion of it. It has Lukhmi, which is like a Samosa, with soup poured on top,” he said. The shreds of lamb chunks with pepper enhanced the flavor of the soup.

Next up was Nawabi Murgh, a chicken supreme roulade served with nuts and sweet mango chutney. It was accompanied by Khichdi Rafat and Noori Hyderabadi Biryani. It had succulent pieces of lamb and long grain rice, but it was the fragrant lamb stock that made the dish a winner.

Khichdi Rafat had tender pieces of chicken, duck and lamb, but somehow it felt that the Khichdi wasn’t able to pull flavors of any of the meat.

In addition, the last item on the menu was a dessert with garlic as an ingredient. It had layers of garlic kheer and broken wheat porridge that was sweet, but not intense.