Lunch on Eid ul-Fitr

We opted to get outside food this Eid. It’s so much less work and so much less tiring. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as good as homemade.

We ordered the mutton biryani package from Miami Catering.

The mutton biryani came with six hard-boiled eggs and 1 kg mutton (minimum! they say).

It also came with 1 kg roast chicken (minimum 1kg! they say), along with wattalapam, pineapple slices, onion & date chutney, Maldive fish sambol; and a curry with peas and cashews. Dishes subject to Rs. 100 deposit while the entire package came to Rs. 2750.

And, as a side note, when you go to catered events, like weddings, this is pretty much what’s served. The exact same type of biryani,  pea & cashew curry, Maldive fish sambol, onion & date chutney, roast chicken, pineapple. That particular selection of dishes – it’s quite the done thing.

Starting in the upper left corner is the beef curry that Fahim’s mom made. Very good, of course, although I was only allowed one piece (not good for me. )

To the beef’s right is the roast chicken. It came whole, so Fahim’s mom ripped it apart before bringing it to the table.

Next we have the four yellow plastic containers. Starting at the top and working our way down and to the left, we have the pea & cashew curry, then the date & onion pickle (elsewhere it would be called a chutney – six of one, half dozen of the other), the pineapple slices, and the Maldive fish sambol. Next we have the teeny tiny remnants of this morning’s pol sambol.

Right of all that is the mutton biryani with a fairly enormous amount of rice. After we finished eating, we gave half of the rice and mutton (along with most of the rest of the remaining everything) to the neighbor’s and still have enough left for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow for Fahim and his parents. That’s because tomorrow, they start the second round of fasting, the six optional days at the end of Ramadan. It’s not necessary to do them, but it brings more, uh, merit, although I’m fairly sure that’s not the correct way to word it.

Below the mutton is the wattalapam from Miami Catering. We gave that to the neighbor’s, too. We had Fahim’s mom’s wattalapam, which is far superior to anything anyone else makes.

This is the wattalapam Fahim’s mom makes. Comparing the pictures of the one from the catering place to Fahim’s mom unfortunately won’t work very well – different lighting and so on – and, while I was going to take a picture of the two side by side, I didn’t actually tell anyone that I had that in mine, so by the time I was ready, the catering wattalapam was already gone to the neighbor’s. Uh…

So. Let me tell you, then. The catering’s wattalapam was several noticeable shades lighter in colour to Fahim’s mom’s wattalapam. Catering places, restaurants, what have you are all concerned with their bottom line. They want to make a profit. They can’t do that – they don’t think – without skimping on ingredients that they figure no one will notice anyway.

No, really, we do notice.

And that’s what makes Fahim’s mom’s wattalapam so superior. Fahim’s mom doesn’t skimp on ingredients. So her wattalapam comes out the way it should.

And really, I will share her recipe with you sometime.

Other entries about Eid ul-Fitr:

• Ramadan starts today
• Eid al Fitr
• Ramadan starts tomorrow
• Shopping for Festival
• Id-Ul-Alha (Hadji Festival Day)
• Breakfast on Eid ul-Fitr
• Lunch on Eid ul-Fitr
• What happens on Eid ul-Fitr?

Tags: Eid ul-Fitr, lunch, biryani, wattalapam, chicken, beef, eggs, rice, curries, sambol, chutney, pickle