The book describes how to make savoury dishes including "Bisks, Farces, forc'd Meats, Marinades, Olio's, Puptons, Ragoos, Sauces, Soops, Pottages". Pastries include biscuits, cakes, custards, puddings, pies and tarts. Confectionery includes candying and conserving flowers, fruits, and roots, as well as jellies, marmalades and decorative "sugar-works". Drinks include the making of beer, cider, mead, perry and English wines, as well as cordials.
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Bulgur Bulgur does not require cooking, although it can be included in cooked dishes; soaking in water is all that is needed. Coarse bulgur is used to make pottages, while the medium and fine grains are used for breakfast cereals, salads such as kısır, pilavs, breads, and in dessert puddings such as kheer. Bulgur porridge is similar to frumenty, a cracked wheat porridge that was a staple of medieval cuisine. In breads, it adds a whole-grain component.
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Lentils were the most important of the legumes and were used to make pottages and soups, as well as fried lentil cakes called ashishim (similar to Arabic felafel), such as those that King David is described as distributing to the people when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem.According to Tova Dickstein, a researcher at Neot Kedumim in Israel, ashishim were honey-dipped pancakes made from crushed red lentils and sesame seeds.Biblical cuisine inspires Bible learning in Israel Stews made of lentils or beans were common and they were cooked with onion, garlic, and leeks for flavor. Fresh legumes were also roasted, or dried and stored for extended periods.
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From the Mughal period itself, one popular culinary work was the Nuskha-i-Shahjahani, a record of the dishes believed to be prepared for the court of Emperor Shahjahan (r.1627-1658). This Persian manuscript features ten chapters, on nānhā (breads), āsh-hā (pottages), qalīyas and dopiyāzas (dressed meat dishes), bhartas, zerbiryāns (a kind of layered rice-based dish), pulāʾo, kabābs, harīsas (savoury porridge), shishrangas and ḵẖāgīnas (omelette), and khichṛī; the final chapter involves murabbā (jams), achār (pickles), pūrī (fried bread), shīrīnī (sweets), ḥalwā (warm pudding), and basic recipes for the preparation of yoghurt, panīr (Indian curd cheese) and the coloring of butter and dough. Another famous textbook was Ḵẖulāṣat-i Mākūlāt u Mashrūbāt, perhaps dating to the era of the emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1656-1707), while another was Alwān-i Niʿmat, a work dedicated solely to sweetmeats.
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