Translations:Kashmiri cuisine/60/en

For the average Kashmiri, breakfast normally means fresh bread from the local bakery and a cup of noon chai (salt tea). While the bread is there in all the seasons for the breakfast, its accompaniments change. Some affordable luxuries include:

Kashmiri noon chai.

• Harisa. Made by specialised cooks called harisaguyr, Harisa is a popular meat preparation made for breakfast, it is slow cooked with spices in a special underground oven for a 24-hour period and hand stirred. A good harisa entails a meticulous mincing of deboned mutton, mixed with local rice, fennel seeds, cinnamon, cardamom and salt. Cooked on sim fire for at least 6 to 8 hours, boiling smoky mustard oil and some milk is poured while the wooden masher continues to stir. Small kebabs are made to be served along with and also a small serving of Methi (lamb's intestines cooked in fenugreek) and tempered onion rings. The dish is so tasty that one 18th century Afghan governor, who came here during the Afghan Rule, is believed to have over-eaten himself to death.
• Harisa zafrani, sprinkled with Kashmiri saffron. A maker in Aali Kadal was known for this peculiar dish.
• Luchi & halwa, by luchi makers outside Kheer Bhawani shrine.
• Makai vath, cooked granular maize meal. Used to be a staple food in the unirrigated highland villages, where rice could not be grown.
• Gaer vugra, water chestnut flour porridge. These water chestnuts or buffalo nuts are called gaer in Kashmiri. They grow in shallow waters at many places, especially near the shore of the famous Wular lake. In India, these water chestnuts also grow but are generally bigger in size and have more water content. Generally eaten with churned yoghurt diluted with water (gurus).
• Vushki vath, barley meal porridge. Cooked as a staple food in some hilly villages of Kashmir, where rice or maize is not easily available or grown.