Eyes light up, the tongue caresses the lips and a knowing nod accompanies accolades when conversation turns to cooking in the Moghlai style. The adjectives used to describe it – princely, sublime, majestic, illustrious – leaves no doubt about its royal status. It is food for kings and queens, courtiers and nobility, and also for modern-day enthusiasts.

With more than 400 cooks in Moghul Emperor Akbar's kitchen, there was great potential for experimenting to produce perfect blends of marinades and sauces combining meats and fruits. Many different spices were used for their aromatic and pungent attributes as well as for their medicinal qualities. Royal banquets became a focus of entertainment at the Moghul courts.

There were dishes that were aromatically marinated in masalas of ginger and onion, tinged with nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon. Dishes of rich sauces combined a perfect balance of many spices, yoghurt, cream, almonds and pistachios. This created a base to receive morsels of chicken or meat cooked in ghee. Delicious vegetable dishes were flavoured with the nutty essence of poppy seeds and sweetened with honey. Extravagant Basmati rice dishes - biryanis and pilaus - each rice grain flavourful, garnished with cardamom and strands of saffron with a silky-smooth texture. Mouth watering ice-cold desserts were flavoured with essence of roses, decked with tissue-thin sheets of real gold or silver and decorated with a scattering of rose petals. All were prepared to please the eye as well as the palate.