Jaipur Home Cooking Experience with Authentic Lunch/Dinner

Their actual house

This is not a studio kitchen hired for the purpose. It is the family's home, where they live, and you are welcomed into it — which is the difference between a cooking class and a cooking lesson.

What you cook

A full Rajasthani or north Indian meal, depending on the day and the season. Expect a dal, a dry seasonal sabzi, a raita, rice, and breads worked on the tawa.

The technique worth having shown to you is the tadka — whole spices dropped into hot ghee and poured over the finished dal at the end. That step is most of the flavour in Indian cooking and almost nobody outside India does it.

And the reason Rajasthani food is the way it is: water was scarce, so dishes were cooked in ghee, milk and buttermilk; fresh vegetables were scarce, so gram flour and dried desert beans carried the plate; there was no refrigeration, so much of it is dry-spiced and keeps for days.

Then you eat it

Sitting down with the family, which is the end of the class. Lunch or dinner depending on your slot.

The henna option

One version adds mehndi. The paste is ground henna leaf; it goes on green, dries, flakes off, and stains orange before darkening to deep brown over twenty-four hours and fading across two weeks.

One thing that matters: only natural brown henna is used here. If anyone anywhere in India offers you "black henna", refuse it — it contains PPD and it burns skin.

Henna needs a couple of hours of not using your hands properly, so it is done after the cooking rather than before.

Four options

The class with a meal; with a meal and pickup; with a meal and private pickup and drop; or the class with henna as well.

Practical

Vegetarian throughout. Jain, no-onion-and-garlic, no-chilli and gluten-free are all ordinary requests — say so when you book.

You leave with the recipes.