Amba Qaliya

 Amba Qaliya is basically a mango based meat curry in which Amba means mango and Qaliya means meat curry. It is  a meat dish in which lamb is cooked in raw mango without the use of any oil or ghee. It's just raw mango pureed with water which is constantly added to the meat cooked lamb  with coriander and raw onion-based gravy with a pinch of saffron. When preparing this meal, time is of the utmost importance; if you go too slowly, the meat will dry up and stay undercooked, and if you add too much, the flavour of the gravy will be diluted. 

Jahangir, Akbar's eldest son, loved mangoes so much that he ordered his chefs to make a meal with mangoes and meat for him. It was a challenge for the khansamas (cooks) because they were not used to cooking the fruit alongside the meat, but with their expertise and ability, nothing seemed impossible once the emperor made a request. They came up with a dish called  Amba Qaliya after a lots of trial and error. The king was quite delighted with the dish's sweet and tangy flavour.

Such stories are what makes our food culture interesting and unpredictable .Well as you know we live in a country where we get the same dish with different names and different history behind it . Amba Qaliya also held its place in parsi culture where it was called Amba Kalya,  Moreover, it differs from the Mughlai version that was given to us. The Parsi version contains fresh soft mangoes and jaggery in a 2:1 ratio, but no meat. Mangoes and jaggery are cooked separately before being combined after the mangoes are tender and the jaggery has entirely dissolved in water. Grounded cinnamon is added just before serving to improve the flavour and fragrance.