The OG Kitchen Hack: Dhungar in Rajasthan
“Good food is very often, even most often,” says Anthony Bourdain, “simple food.” I’ll admit I’m biased toward Bourdain and often take his words to heart, but here I think he’s objectively right.
Think of the dishes cooked in your home, the ones you return to most. Made with little fuss, using ingredients and methods passed down matrilineally, they ask for neither elaborate spice nor long hours, yet they carry that one small twist, a detail that changes them.
Dhungar or dhoopgar, a technique of smoking food is one such little hack in a line of many long relied on techniques that coax maximum flavour out of modest ingredients. In Rajasthani kitchens, it steps in especially when an everyday dish calls for novelty, for richness in an otherwise light and austere plate.
There are no exact records of when Rajasthani kitchens began using it, but food historians trace dhungar back to Mughal sources from the 16th–17th centuries, where it perfumed meat dishes. Rajasthan, through its Rajput–Mughal exchanges, almost certainly absorbed the method early. But while the Mughal court reserved it for meat and feasts, Rajasthani households adapted it to the daily: lentils, buttermilk, beans, even accompaniments. The principle is older still; smoke had long been valued as a preservative before refrigeration.
The act itself is sparse, consisting of a live coal, a spoon of ghee, and a covered utensil, but the effect is transformative. Rajasthan’s desert climate has always demanded invention with limited means. Vegetables are hardy and few– cluster beans, lentils, buttermilk, millet– and cooking here has been less about abundance than about depth. Smoke provides that additional layer, and turns economy into intensity.
The coal is drawn directly from the chulha, glowing from the same fire that cooks the meal. A drop of ghee releases a sharp, fragrant hiss. The pot is covered at once, and in those brief minutes the food inhales the smoke.
Household variations of Dhungar
Soni ji, who lives in Manpura Macheri, a village near Jaipur, uses dhungar for her Phali ki Bhujji. She prepares the beans in the usual way, slow cooked till tender. Once it is ready, she places two small coals over the sabzi, adds ghee, and seals the container. The hiss that follows releases a fragrant smoke, earthy, buttery, slightly sharp, that curls around the beans. Quickly, she covers the container, trapping the aroma inside, to be opened in a few minutes later, with the coal pieces removed, of course, and the phali served fresh and hot.
In another household, Vidya ji cooks Dabkan vali Daal. As her daal simmers on top of the chulha, she heats a diya with coal. The aim here is not to perfume the coal but to prepare the diya itself. Once hot, she removes the coal, drops in ghee, garlic, and cumin, and lets them crackle. Rather than pouring this tempering on top, she submerges the diya directly into the daal. When stirred through, the lentils keep the warmth of garlic and cumin, deepened by the breath of smoke, and some earthiness from the diya itself.
When making a simple, home-style jungli maas in my household, once the meat is cooked, a piece of coal is held inside the handi with a pair of tongs. A few drops of ghee are poured over it, and as soon as the smoke rises, the meat is poured in without letting go of the coal. The handi is sealed at once and only opened at the time of serving.
The technique also extends beyond main dishes. Freshly churned chaach takes on a faint smokiness when a coal, drizzled with ghee, is covered briefly with a glass before the buttermilk is poured. The sharpness of the drink is softened, made rounder. Tamatar churri, a relish of tomato, onion, green chilli, and dry spice, on its own is sharp and raw. A brief smoking tempers its edges, lending it a richness that pairs well with coarse bajra rotis or plain rice.
Attention, restraint, and renewal
At its heart, dhungar is an act of attention. It is intimate, almost ceremonial and crucially, it belongs to the chulha, market brought coal dulls the practice, which is why it still thrives most naturally in rural kitchens.
Its endurance in Rajasthan is not accidental. The land is dry, the soil unyielding, and vegetables not always plentiful. Smoke lends heft to staples that might otherwise feel repetitive. Lentils and beans eaten day after day are kept alive by this slight variation, each meal both familiar and renewed.
There are also practical gains. Smoked foods often keep better in the heat and they are more filling, even with less fat or spice. Across India, techniques evolved from constraint, geography, scarcity, custom. In Rajasthan, dhungar is the clearest instance of limitation turned to art. It thus remains a trick of startling simplicity.
