Breaking the Ramadan fast: In one city, a special stew with goat and rose petals

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/04/29/ [login to see] /ramadan-haleem-hyderabad-india-food
It's the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Royal Hyatt convention center, which usually hosts wedding receptions, has been turned into a kitchen for Pista House, one of this southern Indian city's top restaurants. A huge hall is full of dozens of workers dressed in yellow shirts and hair nets, busy crushing cardamom pods, peeling onions and de-stalking little piles of fresh green chili peppers.

But there's only one dish on the menu.

It's haleem — a thick meat and lentil stew, cooked for hours, pounded into a paste and flavored with rose petals, cinnamon and cardamom, among other spices.

Around the world, the dawn-to-dusk daily Ramadan fast — expected to start this week in India as soon as the crescent moon is spotted — is usually followed by a feast. And in Hyderabad, that feast is dominated by haleem.

Pista House alone makes thousands of pounds of it each day during Ramadan, says Mohammed Mohddis Ali, whose family owns the chain of more than two dozen restaurants. With goat meat, coarsely ground wheat and lentils, haleem makes for the perfect meal between fasts, says Pista House's media coordinator, Fayaz Farooqui.