Bihari cuisine is eaten mainly in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, as well as in the places where people originating from the state of Bihar have settled: Jharkhand, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, some cities of Pakistan, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Jamaica, and the Caribbean. Bihari cuisine includes Angika cuisine , Bhojpuri cuisine, Maithil cuisine and Magahi cuisine.
The cuisine of Bihar is largely similar to North indian cuisine and East Indian cuisines. It is highly seasonal; watery foods such as watermelon and sharbat made from the pulp of the wood-apple fruit are consumed mainly in the summer months, while dry foods such as preparations made of sesame seeds and poppy seeds are consumed more frequently in the winter months.
Bihari cuisine include litti chokha, a baked salted wheat-flour cake filled with sattu (baked chickpea flour) and some special spices, which is served with baigan bharta, made of roasted eggplant (brinjal) and tomatoes. Dairy products are consumed frequently throughout the year, including dahi (yogurt), spiced buttermilk (known as mattha), ghee, lassi and butter.
There are numerous Bihari meat dishes, with chicken and mutton being the most common. Fish dishes are especially common in the Mithila region of North Bihar due to the number of rivers, such as the Sone, Gandak, Ganges and Koshi. Among meat dishes, meat saalan is a popular dish made of mutton or goat curry with cubed potatoes in garam masala. Dalpuri is another popular dish in Bihar. It is salted wheat-flour bread, filled with boiled, crushed, and fried gram pulses.
Malpua is a popular sweet dish of Bihar, prepared by a mixture of maida, milk, bananas, cashew nuts, peanuts, raisins, sugar, water, and green cardamom. Another notable sweet dish of Bihar is balushahi, which is prepared by a specially treated combination of maida and sugar along with ghee, and the other worldwide famous sweet, khaja is made from flour, vegetable fat, and sugar, which is mainly used in weddings and other occasions. Silao near Nalanda is famous for its production. During the festival of Chhath, thekua, a sweet dish made of ghee, jaggery, and whole-meal flour, flavoured with aniseed, is made.
Bihari thali
As the seasons change so does the Bihari thali, every 3–4 months. The constants are rice, roti, achar, chatni, dals and milk products, with some variation.
For the frying and tempering (chhounkna / tadka) of certain vegetable dishes, Bihari cuisine makes use of vegetable oil or mustard oil and panch phoron — literally the "five spices": fennel seed (saunf), black mustard seed (), fenugreek seed (), cumin seed () and nigella seed ( or ). There is a lot of light frying () in Bihari cuisine.
One remarkable tradition is "smoked food", referring to the use of smoked red chilli to infuse a strong aroma in food. Smoked chilli is used in preparing chokhaa, i.e. mashed brinjals / potatoes / tomatoes, either single or combined. Smoked chilli is also used in preparing kadam chutney (the kadam is a common fruit that is sweet-sour in taste).
Traditional cuisine
Kadhi bari - These fried soft dumplings made of besan (gram flour) are cooked in a spicy gravy of yogurt and besan. They go well with plain rice.
Khichdi - A mix of rice, dal and several vegetables, steamed together to give a distinctive taste of different ingredients combined in one dish. It is often topped up with ghee.
Ghugni - A preparation made of black grams soaked (either lightly or overnight) in water and then sautéed in mustard oil in a wok. All kinds of garam masala made as paste on a sil is used for flavouring; chana is also ground to form a paste used as thickener. This thickens the masala and makes gravy as per desire. After proper seasoning and bhunjana, water is added to the mix for gravy as desired.
Pittha - A sort of dumpling that can be either salty or sweet. It is a semi-circular or ball-shaped preparation whose crust is made of soft rice flour and filled with preparations made of channa daal lentil paste, or poppy seeds and gur (jaggery), then steamed in water or milk and allowed to thicken. Sattu - Powdered baked gram, an energy-giving food usually mixed with water or milk. Sometimes, sattu mixed with spices is used to prepare stuffed , locally known as . Dhuska - A deep-fried item prepared from a mixture of powdered rice and ghee, and salted. Litti - Powdered baked gram is mixed with chopped onions, green chillies, lemon juice, and coriander leaves. This mixture is filled inside atta and either barbecued over coal or deep-fried with oil. Best accompanied with ghee, curd and baigan chokha or aloo chokha.