Ramadan is a great time to open your fasts with your family, loved ones and friends. Opening the fast of others counts as a blessing (sawab) which means that you will get rewarded for it. This is why it is good to provide food for others and to open their fast. Many muslims also send food in packs to others within their locality.
Firstly, I want to say that the whole point of fasting is so that we realise how someone who hasn’t got anything to eat feels. So it is important not to over eat and count our blessings. Although I made a lot of food in my iftar party, this is not typical of a day to day opening of fast and it is better to eat less, but drink as much as you can which is very important. Plus, we don’t want to miss the true meaning of fasting.
So I recently had an Iftar party at my house and a get together. I had a few family friends round and made a few things to eat.
On the day, as well as a good tidy up, I also made the following traditional dishes:
- Aloo Choole which is made with chickpeas, potato, onions, tomatoes (finely chopped) and a mix of spices.
- Dahi Bare which is made out of chickpeas and spices which is then mixed with water, left a while then fried to form balls. They are then soaked and put into yoghurt, with finely chopped onions and tomatoes and spices! It doesn’t sound as good as it tastes!
- Biryani which is made with either chicken or lamb, tomatoes, lemon, spices and rice.
- Meat Somasas and chicken rolls
- Shammi Kebabs made from chicken
- Some homemade Pina Colada and a traditional drink called Rooh Afza
- Sweet dish of cream with cake, chopped bananas and strawberry.
Here you can see a snapshot of the table and some of the food!
It is also good and traditional to have dates when opening the fast, as well as fruit. I added the dates and didn’t want to just make a fruit chaat (fruit cocktail). So I decided to make something different. I started by cutting up an array of fruits. I then threaded them individually onto the cocktail sticks and then lodged them into a turned over, half cut and emptied water melon. And voila, an amazing display of fruits was formed! It looked rather beautiful if I do say so myself! 😉
The dinner went smoothly and a good time was had by all!
