My forefathers typically ate a breakfast of seven mithais and a big glass of badam milk. The assortment of sweets was never repeated in the same week,” says Lipika Dudhoria about her family’s rich halwai tradition. She belongs to the seventh generation of Rai Bahadur Singh Budh Sing Dudhoria, an affluent textile merchant, who migrated from the Shekhawati region in Rajasthan in the 1700s to settle on the banks of the Hooghly in Murshidabad, West Bengal. Those were prosperous times, as the first nawab of Bengal, Murshid Quli Khan, had shifted his capital here, transforming the region into a bustling economic hub.
Along with her brother Darshan, Lipika runs Bari Kothi, the family’s ancestral mansion that was restored into a heritage hotel in 2019. At the Darbar Hall, which was once a ballroom and now a 16-seater dining space, the brother-sister duo serve an elaborate vegetarian spread of Sheherwali cuisine. When the Oswali Jains moved here almost 300 years ago, the locals referred to the community as sheherwalis or “city dwellers”.
The Dudhorias are known for their unique culinary heritage, a blend of Rajasthani, Mughal and Bengali influences, and a selection of recipes rooted in memory and shaped by their new homes. Sweets continue to remain at the heart of the cuisine, and stand out for their unique innovations. “My late grandmother recalled, the halwai khana (sweet-making quarters in the mansion) was alive with the sounds of utensils, the fragrance of ghee being mixed in milk and chatter of over 30 halwais,” says Lipika. The Halwai Khana Chowk at Bari Kothi is a two-storey structure that served as the family’s main kitchen. “Most of the halwais came from Rajasthan, carrying with them their traditional recipes,” she adds.
The Bengali touch is distinct for the use of ingredients like chhana to make chhana bora, muri or puffed rice and jaggery for muri ka ladoo, chalkumro or ash gourd for a preserve called kohre ka murabba, and coconut that is abundant in the region for their own version of pithe (steamed rice flour crepes stuffed with jaggery and coconut). The Mughal influence appears in the form of saffron, ittar, rose water and dried fruits. “One of the best examples of the nawabi touch is nimas, a soft and frothy dessert much like Delhi’s daulat ki chaat,” she informs.
Murshidabad’s sweet-making culture extends to its chhana bora, a close cousin of gulab jamun, but deep fried until the exterior acquires a burnt brown texture. Like many recipe inventions, the origin story of the chhana bora remains largely undocumented. Sweet shops in Berhampore in Murshidabad district say it was the idea of a certain Patal Ustad, who was employed in the kitchen of the local Raja Manindra Chandra Dey of Cossimbazar sometime around the late 19th century. The king briefed Ustad to come up with a sweet that was neither roshogolla or pantua (an equivalent of gulab jamun). He prepared a fusion of sorts, which had a harder coating and longer shelf life.
“The main ingredients are chhana, atta, sugar, ghee and cardamom,” informs Soumyajit Saha, the owner of Ananda Sweets, a 48-year-old shop in Berhampore. He says the skill lies in achieving a texture that mimics a honeycomb inside, which helps the sugar syrup to seep in and hold. In March, chhana bora was awarded the GI tag.
Bengal takes its sweets seriously, and in Murshidabad, they are etched in time and in good measure.