Tehri with kachumbar salad | |
| Course | Main course |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Indian subcontinent |
| Serving temperature | Hot |
| Main ingredients | |
Tahri (also tapahri[1]) is a yellow rice dish in North Indian cuisine. Spices are added to plain cooked rice for flavor and colour. In one version of Tahri, potatoes are added to the rice.[2] In other variants soyabean chunks, vegetables, onions, tomatoes and many different spices are also added.[better source needed]
As per Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, the Hindi word Tahri is derived from Sanskrit word Tāpaharī,[3][1] which is a dish prepared from rice, dal chunks (badi), vegetables, cooked in ghee with spices especially turmeric.[4]
The recipe for Tahari has mentions with name Tapahari in Bhāvaprakāśa Nighaṇṭu,[4][5] an ancient Ayurvedic treatise written in Sanskrit language. The recipe for Tahari also finds mention in Bhojanakutūhala, another Sanskrit book on cookery and culinary traditions. Bhojanakutūhala asserts that tāpaharī is a very famous dish in Northern India.[5] The ingredients for cooking tāpaharī are black gram vaṭakas, rice grains, ghee, turmeric, wet ginger, asafoetida, water and salt. Vaṭakas were prepared from black-gram flour and mixed with turmeric, fried in ghee with washed rice grains. Adequate water with salt, ginger and asafoetida was added to this mixture. This preparation was called taharī or tāpaharī.[5]
Tahari became more popular during the Second World War when meat prices increased substantially and potato became the popular substitute in biryani.[6]
