Sunday Kibbeh on a Street in the Chouf
In a Lebanese mountain village the whole street still makes kibbeh together on Sundays. Aina joins the pounding, the gossip and the argument about how much bulgur is too much bulgur.
The Biryani House That Cooks for Two Thousand
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Show notes
A wedding night in a Hyderabad kitchen
The Qureshi family has cooked Hyderabadi dum biryani for weddings since 1931. For this episode Aina followed them through a single wedding for two thousand guests, recorded in the open-air kitchen behind the function hall. The result is a portrait of skill, timing and a recipe that nobody has ever written down.
- How a kitchen of fourteen men sequences forty copper pots over wood fires
- The sealing of the dum and why the youngest cook guards it
- Rice, saffron and meat sourcing on the morning of a wedding
- The economics of a family catering business in 2026
- What the eldest cook thinks of restaurant biryani
With thanks to the Qureshi family, who insisted the crew eat first.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Salt, Smoke and Grandmothers. I am Aina Rosli, and in this show I follow one dish, one kitchen or one market and let the people who cook there tell the story themselves. Today we are in Hyderabad, behind a wedding hall, in an open-air kitchen with fourteen cooks and forty copper pots over wood fires. The Qureshi family has made dum biryani for weddings since 1931, and tonight they are feeding two thousand guests. I stayed with them from the first ladle of ghee at noon until the last plate went out at two in the morning. You will hear the pots being sealed, the youngest cook being shouted at, and the eldest cook explaining, with some feeling, why restaurant biryani is not biryani. Bring an appetite. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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