During the 18th century, Jewish traders from Baghdad and Aleppo starting making their way to Calcutta, then the capital of the British Raj. Eventually, some established permanent offices there, and moved themselves and their families. These Baghdadi Jews, as they came to be known, created a vibrant intellectual and commercial culture and ,with time, their own cuisine, fusing Middle Eastern and Indian flavors, within their own religious culinary rules. The Baghdadi Jewish community flourished in the 20th century, but finally came undone in the late 1940's, with the partition of India. Most Baghdadi Jews immigrated to England, America and Israel.

I cooked these Baghdadi Jewish dishes many years ago, when I first got Copeland Mark's book on Sephardic Cooking. For some reason, I didn't write up the whole cuisine so I found myself making one of them again recently, when attempting to make up cuisines that I'd skipped - only to later find that I had already cooked these. So here they are:

• Mukmura
  Chicken and Almonds in a Lemon Sauce
• Gadjar Murghi Meetha
  Chicken with Ginger-Carrot Sauce
• Beetroot Khuta
  Sweet & Sour Beef and Beets

Adapted from a recipe in Copeland Mark's Sephardic Cooking: 600 Recipes Created In Exotic Sephardic Kitchens From Morocco To India

See also: Afghani Jewish, American Jewish, Baghdadi Jewish, Cochin Jewish, Greek Jewish, Bene Israel, Egyptian Jewish, Georgian Jewish, Iraqi, Bengali, Israeli dishes.

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