Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Ramadan Iftar Foods

Ramadan is a time when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, when they break their fast in a meal known as the iftar. This is a time for family and friends, when we visit each other for iftar parties and worship. Here are some of the foods I have eaten for iftar this month.


A fast is usually broken with dates, as per tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).


Some sweet drink usually follows, to give you the energy boost you need after a whole day of fasting. In Bengali circles, these drinks are usually mangoe lassi, or some type of sherbet or fruit cocktail. Just because Muslims can't drink does not mean we can't mix drinks!


Porota - shown below - a flat bread-type pancake that is the breakfast of champions in South Asia. However, since it's South Asia, you can't NOT have some unhealthy but extremely delicious snacks!



Above is what we call "shingara" - a type of samosa, but bigger, and below is a dish we call "Beguni" - Egg plant coated in batter and then fried.


The iftar spread at my parents' place


The kids love the spring rolls and noodles are making a big comeback at iftar parties. Gotta love noodles.


Potluck iftar at a friend's place

In South Asia, there's enough time between iftar and Isha (night) prayers, and Isha is quite early in the night (7-9 pm) so one can have dinner later, which is a separate meal by itself. In Canada, due to our compressed timings and longer days, iftar and dinner is usually combined in one meal.

Dinner spread at said friend's place

Salad for the girls


Of course, after a long day of fasting, you want some meat. Above is chicken tandoori, while shown below is a curry chicken breast dish.


Of course dessert has to be taken care of at parties, after meals. Usually people go pray Taraweeh (night prayers) and return, depending on the time.

Mango Lassi and Rooh Afza drinks

Any Bengali party will have sweets

Fruits, usually used to make a dish called 'Fruit Chaat'

11 comments:

'liya said...

Yum! These are quite the spreads :)

Az said...

Mezba, you killed me with that Tandoori Chicken :D Oh man I'll be thinking about it all day.

Iftar is at 05:53pm here in JHB, and Esha is at 07:15pm. So we generally have Iftar and our main meal together - although no one can eat much, so we tend to eat a little and then peck away every hour before bed time. Our Suhoor ends at 05:15am... we only wake up at 04:30am though.

nadia said...

The variety of food is very impressive! There's something about Ramadan that makes samosas and pakora taste even better.

You took beautiful pictures, Mezba.

PS: I can *not* imagine iftar without Rooh Afza.

Scrumps said...

It all looks sooo good! :)

mezba said...

@Liya, and yesterday we had halal steak for Iftar, at Affy's Premium Grill!

@Azra, I love tandoori chicken. You guys have a proper time for Isha, you can come home and relax. In summer here, our Isha is quite late and suhoor quite early, so all sleeping has to be before iftar!

@Nadia,

There's something about Ramadan that makes samosas and pakora taste even better.

oh yes, it's called fasting :-)

And of course, mom's cooking. No food like mom's food.

PS. I too cannot imagine iftar minus Rooh Afza.

@Scrumps, in this case, looks were NOT deceiving. It was all very, very good.

Aisha said...

Great pictures!!!!! Wow! You must have a nice camera ;) (I saw that as status message for you lol)

Seriously though very nice work

Gwen Styles said...

Everything looks delicious! Thanks for posting this.

Misha said...

Those look delicious, probably wasn't a good idea to look at them while I'm fasting. And "salad for the girls"? Salad is for boys too, you know! :)

Anonymous said...

So much food!!!!Im sure u had a great iftar that day! Ramadan is indeed full of delicious dishes. without samosa and rolls We cant imagine Iftari at all!

saurav said...

আহ ! জিবে জল এনে দিল !
Wow ! just love the variety and i love "Singara" and "Beguni" and noodles was something that i hav neva had seen in Iftar Parties..
but would surely make a grt combination.. i love noodles too :-)

Shruti Bhagwat said...

woww..
read one more great article about iftar