Haleem — Dakhni.org

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IngredientsWheat, lentils and meat

PreparationPounded for hours into a thick paste

SeasonThe month of Ramazan^[1]

Haleem is wheat, lentils and meat pounded together for hours into a thick, rich paste — a dish of patience rather than technique, the way kachchi biryani is. It is the great Ramazan staple of the Hyderabadi table, part of the wider Hyderabadi cuisine that grew where the Persian khansamas of the Asaf Jahi court met the Telugu cooks of the Deccan plateau.^[1]

I · The DishWheat, Lentils, Meat

Pounded to a paste

Hours of slow cooking and pounding, not layering

Unlike the layered, sealed cooking of dum biryani, haleem is built by long, slow simmering of wheat, lentils and meat together until the grains and meat break down into a single thick, rich paste — a dish that rewards the hours put into it rather than any single technique.

II · RamazanThe Month It Belongs To

A dish for breaking the fast

Around the wider Hyderabadi table

Haleem is above all a dish of Ramazan, sitting alongside marag, mirchi ka salan and khubani ka meetha as part of the wider Hyderabadi table that surrounds the city's signature biryani.^[1]

References

^ ^ ^ Karen Leonard, Social History of an Indian Caste: The Kayasths of Hyderabad, University of California Press, 1978.