Mughlai cuisine

Mughlai cuisine consists of delicately-spiced dishes developed or popularised in the early-modern Indo-Persian cultural centres of the Mughal Empire. It represents a combination of cuisine of the Indian subcontinent with the cooking styles and recipes of Persian cuisine. The Mughals introduced foods such as stuffed meat and poultry, leavened bread, pilau, and dried fruits to the region. They brought cooking methods including the tandoor clay oven, the braising of meat, the practice of marinating meat in yoghurt, and the making of cheese. They incorporated India's spices and vegetables with these to create a distinctive cuisine. Sweetmeats too were much liked by the Mughals; these included halva, rice desserts, and falooda made with vermicelli in syrup.

Mughal recipes are recorded in works from the Mughal era such as the Nuskha-i-Shahjahani, ("Shah Jahan's Recipes") and the Ḵẖulāṣat-i Mākūlāt u Mashrūbāt ("Compendium of Things Eaten and Drunk"). Sweetmeat recipes are recorded in the Ḵẖulāṣat-i Mākūlāt u Mashrūbāt and in a dedicated work, the Alwān-E-Niʿmat ("Colours of the Table").

In the modern era, Mughlai dishes have been adapted to diners' tastes. A well-known instance is the modification of dry yoghurt-marinated tandoor-baked chicken tikka with a creamy sauce to form chicken tikka masala, a British curry.