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This rare mutton delicacy from the Valley is availble only in winters, writes
Ehsan Fazili Known for its scenic beauty, Kashmir also has a unique cuisine and offers a variety of dishes for different seasons of the year. A special mutton preparation, hareesa, is a dish for the Kashmir elite and is prepared mainly in the capital Srinagar. This dish is normally cooked during the winter months from December to March. It came to the Valley from Iran over six centuries ago with the advent of Islam.
Though several families have learnt to prepare the unique dish at home, the best-quality hareesa is prepared by some experts located in Srinagar’s downtown area, called Shehr-e-Khas. Some 30 years back, only a few families living in the Aali Kadal and Rajouri Kadal localities were famous for making this dish. Now there are over two-dozen such centres that prepare the special dish in the city. A couple of hotels in the Lal Chowk area also serve it in the winter months. It is so popular that the stocks are exhausted by noon every day. Most of the customers relish the dish accompanied with a piece of kebab and tandoori roti. Delecious as well as nutritious, hareesa is prepared using fine-quality mutton and some rice mixed with spices. It is then cooked all night and is ready only the next morning. It is also a breakfast dish. The preparation of mutton for hareesa starts a morning before. Waseem Ahmad, in his thirties, who sells hareesa at Rajouri Kadal, has been in this trade for the past couple of decades. He learnt to make this dish from his father and grandfather. "The expertise and the adequate quality and quantity of mutton, rice and spices matter," says Waseem Ahmad. He refutes the notion that many dealers make the preparation from beef so as to reduce the cost. "That is not possible as the dish cannot be made from beef," he asserts. Each kg of mutton requires 200 gm (20 per cent) of rice. The meat preparation starts early in the morning. It then goes through a process of refinement in afternoon. The mutton used in the dish is from the thigh of sheep or goat, and is cleared of the fat and bones before the cooking process starts late at night. The meat is chopped finely and mixed with rice. It is then cooked over firewood in earthen tandoors over covered hearths. The ready dish sells for about Rs 280 per kg, depending upon the price of mutton, rice, firewood and labour. Many make a beeline for the shops of nanwais (Kashmir bakers), to fetch sumptuous hareesa for breakfast. "There is a heavy rush as people come out of mosques around dawn after the morning prayers," says Farooq Ahmad, who is also based at Rajouri Kadal. Like the kangri, (an earthen firepot used for keeping warm by Kashmiris in winters), hareesa also finds a special place among the families of newly weds. In winter months, specially ordered hareesa is sent from the house of the bridegroom to brides’ house after the engagement ceremony. For many Kashmiris settled abroad hareesa remains a weakness when on a visit home. Students, professionals, businessmen and many others living outside the valley, too, are fond of hareesa, and try to get it through the family members and friends. "People even take it to places like Delhi, Mumbai, Pakistan and Dubai," says Waseem Ahmad. Like many wazwan dishes, hareesa may soon be tinned and find a place in the open market, a practice fast increasing in the recent years.
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