There’s more to Hyderabadi food than biryani and haleem. Deepshika Pasupunuri goes searching for asal food in the homes of a few cooks keen on retaining the region’s rich culinary diversity and recipes. ‘Watery soup, mince chops, dull pudding.’ That’s how one disappointed guest described his 1930s meal with a noble family in Hyderabad. Little did he know, however, that these dishes were a mere English formality. The real meal was to follow. “As soon as the pudding was removed,” he reveals, “there began an unbelievable succession of dishes served in beautiful Persian-style utensils: pullaos and biryanis, naans and farmaishes, rogan joshes and qormas, chickens, quails and partridges…” Extravagant meals like this might seem like a thing of the past. But in some local homes, they’re far from forgotten.  Hyderabadi cuisine, beyond a few crowd-pullers, isn’t as widely recognised. Take Khwān Neʿmat-e Āṣafiya, a famous nineteenth-century cookbook with its whopping 680 recipes compiled by the Nawab’s kitchen manager. Such books list staggering demands: expensive saffron, special deghs, and as many as twenty ingredients ground into …