What is Haleem?

Haleem is a slow-cooked stew of wheat, barley, lentils and meat (usually mutton or beef) that gets beaten and pounded for hours until the grains and meat surrender into one velvety, almost paste-like mass. In Hyderabad it is less a dish than a season: every Ramadan, restaurants and roadside stalls fire up enormous cauldrons, men work the mixture with wooden paddles like they're rowing, and the whole city smells of fried onions and ghee at iftar. It arrives garnished with crisp birista (fried onions), a squeeze of lime, fresh coriander, mint, and sometimes a scatter of fried cashews, and it is rich enough that one bowl after a day of fasting can flatten you.

Though its roots are in the Arab harees brought by Hyderabad's Mughlai and Arab heritage, the city made haleem so completely its own that Hyderabadi Haleem holds a GI (Geographical Indication) tag. Outside Ramadan it's harder to find, which only deepens the craving — diaspora Hyderabadis will text each other the instant a local desi restaurant announces it's doing haleem for the season, and a good one becomes a pilgrimage. Vegetarian and chicken versions exist now, but purists will tell you, at length, that real haleem is mutton and time.