Tradition · slow-cooked meat stew
Nihari
/nɪɦɑːɾiː/
Also known as Nihārī, Nahari, Nalli nihari
Nihari is a stew of shank and bone marrow cooked slowly overnight and eaten at dawn; its name comes from Arabic nahar, 'morning', for a breakfast taken after the Fajr prayer. Delhi and Lucknow both claim it, one story setting it in the streets of Shahjahanabad, another in Lucknow during the building of Asaf-ud-Daula's Imambara in 1784. After Partition migrants from north India made it a staple of Karachi and Dhaka, and some Old Delhi cooks claim an unbroken century-old 'taar' of yesterday's stew.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Material
- beef, mutton or goat shank, bone marrow, long pepper, ghee
- Confidence
- Qualified / contested
Worth knowing
Abdul Halim Sharar's Guzishta Lucknow counts nihari among the city's iconic dishes and says even the wealthiest aristocrats went to the stall of Mahumdu, the vendor who perfected it.
Origin contested: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Indian Cuisine (2023) records claims for both Delhi and Lucknow, and both rest on construction-site stories; Sadaf Hussain (2025) prefers Delhi.
Connections (5)
- AnaloguePetha
Petha and nihari share a type of origin story: the food invented to feed the builders of a great monument. Agra says petha was made in Shah Jahan's kitchen to give quick energy to the Taj Mahal's workers; Lucknow says nihari was created during the construction of Asaf-ud-Daula's Imambara complex in 1784, and another version names the Rumi Gate's labourers. Both are legends, and for petha Wikipedia notes the Mughal cookbooks are silent. The pattern says more about how cities remember monuments than about kitchens.
- Traditional linkBara Imambara, Lucknow
Lucknow's origin story for nihari is a building-site legend. Sadaf Hussain records the claim that it was created during the construction of the Imambara complex by Asaf-ud-Daula, Nawab of Awadh, in 1784; Chef Izzat Husain's version names the labourers of the Rumi Gate, for whom cooks and hakims devised a nourishing food. Hussain adds that Lucknow's khansamas refined it during a severe famine in the early 1800s into a thinner, milder, more aromatic stew of shanks and trotters.
- Associated withJama Masjid, Delhi
Delhi's claim centres on the old city around the Jama Masjid. According to the writer Anoothi Visha, nihari was first made in the streets of Shahjahanabad to protect against diseases carried by the cold waters of the Yamuna, a story Sadaf Hussain prefers to Lucknow's. Today some of Delhi's best nihari is sold in Matia Mahal, the street beside the Jama Masjid, where vendors mix the previous day's leftover, the taar, into each new pot; some claim an unbroken taar of over a century.
- Associated withAwadhi cuisine
Lucknow made its own nihari. Sadaf Hussain describes the Awadhi version as thinner, smoother and milder than Delhi's, built on shanks (nalli) and trotters (paya), seasoned with paan ki jhad, khus ki jhad and a gilla masala of browned onion and ginger, with whole spices tied in a muslin potli and removed before serving. It is yellowish with saffron, and Lucknow also makes chicken and quail nihari. Abdul Halim Sharar counted it among the city's iconic dishes.
- TransmissionKarachi
Nihari crossed the new border in 1947. After Partition many Urdu-speaking Muslims from northern India migrated to Karachi in West Pakistan and to Dhaka in East Pakistan and opened restaurants serving the dish. In Karachi it became a large-scale success and spread across Pakistan, so that a breakfast stew attributed to the courts of Delhi and Lucknow became one of Karachi's staples; it is now eaten in Bangladesh as well.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Nihari". Colleen Taylor Sen, Sourish Bhattacharyya & Helen Saberi, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Indian Cuisine (2023). Sadaf Hussain, "Food history: How nihari went from being the humble food of the poor to a dish for the high table", Scroll.in (14 January 2025), from Masalamandi.
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