KARACHI: Meat sizzling on the barbecue and the smell of traditional curries wafting through the air is synonymous with Eid Al-Adha festivities in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city where home chefs said they had restocked spice jars and dug out old recipes for family feasts on the religious holiday. 
Eid Al-Adha falls today, Wednesday, in the South Asian nation this year. It is observed by Muslims to commemorate their belief that prophet Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, before God replaced his son with a ram to be sacrificed instead.
Muslims traditionally mark the occasion by sacrificing a lamb — or goat, cow or camel, depending on the region — at home and dividing it into thirds among the needy, friends and family.
Cooking meat dishes is a major part of the festivities around the Islamic world, including in Pakistani cities like Karachi, where a majority of residents interviewed said they would be feasting on Sindhi, Afghani, Peshawari and Indian classics this year as well as traditional pulao and biryani rice dishes. 
Nearly 1.6 million cattle, including cows, goats, camel and sheep, are bought in Karachi over Eid every year, with families partaking in the sacrificial rituals after tending to the animals for weeks.
Muhammad Hayyan, whose family migrated from India’s capital, New Delhi, after the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, said he was looking forward to a “loaded meat menu” of Afghani boti, Bihari and seekh kebabs, Peshawari karahi and Delhi’s mutton dalcha, a spicy meat and chick pea curry from Hyderabad, or kunna, which is meat cooked in a clay pot below ground level.
“As a tradition, we cook zeera kachori [spicy deep-fried snack originating from the Indian subcontinent]
with fry kebab, dhaga kebab and shami kebab made from camel’s meat, dum karahi made of lamb and many other dishes that are Delhi specialities,” Hayyan, who sacrificed a cow, a camel, a sheep and a goat, told Arab News, saying using traditional recipes was the go-to for Eid for his family.
For Basit Ali, whose mother is an ethnic Pashtun, the menu this Eid includes traditional dishes such as chapli kebab and roasted lamb and beef. 
For Muhammad Hashim, a resident of Karachi’s Quaideen Colony, breakfast is the highlight of Eid Al-Adha. On his family’s holiday table: a traditional breakfast of kaleji (liver) and brain masala, served with piping hot flatbreads or parathas.
“Bihari boti, qeema kebab and different barbecue items are this Eid’s meat features,” he told Arab News, listing out the menu for the rest of the day.
Muhammad Ammad, a resident of the Kashmir Road neighborhood, said his family would be cooking “chapli kebab, Sindhi biryani and paya [trotters], which are very, very tasty too.”
While most Muslim households cook and enjoy the meat at home at gatherings with friends and families, many also take the raw meat to be cooked at their favorite restaurant in order to add a “professional touch” to the final dish.
Restaurant owners in Karachi reported a surge in orders ahead of Eid — a welcome change from the lull caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely effected food businesses since last year.
“On the first day [of Eid], there are few orders, but from the second day onwards, many come to turn their sacrificial meat into different dishes,” Naseebullah, a chef at the Agha Sajji Corner, told Arab News. “The favorite for Eid meals is steam roast, mutton sajji,” he added, referring to a dish originating from the Balochistan province of Pakistan. Traditional sajji comprises a whole lamb marinated only in salt. It is served with rice that is cooked inside the animal, which is baked in an oven, wrapped around a stone “tandoor.”
“Customers bring the sacrificial meat, and we make different food items,” Muhammad Jameel, restaurant manager of the New Delhi Gola Kabab House, said, “including crowd favorites such as dhaga kebab, beef boti and Mumbai koila karahi.”