Available once a year, a dessert fit for royals

Lucknow: It's 1 pm at Akbari Gate, and a time when walking along the street under the still-warm September sun is a somewhat tedious task, but a little down the road the sweet aroma of "mutanjan", a special cuisine made only once in a year, and a day before Bakrid, sets the stomach all aflutter.
The making of mutanjan, a multi-coloured aromatic sweet dish, has just begun at the Bawarchi Khana of Haji Zubari and his son Saud, the only makers of this delicious cuisine in the city.As one gets close to Haji's kitchens, the air is suddenly filled with the aroma of boneless meat soaked in ghee, saffron and a rose-water puree, blended with a burst of other ingredients.
Haji carefully counts drops of 'itar', lemon juice and kewra-water to prepare a "chashni" (syrup), while Saud stirs meat chunks in boiling butter-milk and rich cream over a low flame of burning wood.
Then comes the time for rice to be semi-cooked with salt, along with saffron, nuts and rose-water in three layers. The semi-cooked rice is added to the boiling chashni and meat, and covered to cook for an hour.
Finally after around four hours, the dish is ready to be served with Haji pouring a layer of desi ghee all over the cooked rice and meat. He tops up the dish with sprinklings of cardamom powder and rose petals.
The final produce is the mouth-wateringly sweet mutanjan, which Irina Chowlic, a Ukrainian traveler who visits India every year, and makes it a point to drop into Haji's Lucknow outlet to savour the special dish, says: "With every spoon you take, you feel more and more like a royal." A lover of Awadhi and Mughlai cuisine, Irina terms mutanjan as a dessert for the royals.
Haji says he earned the art of making mutanjan from his grandfather Raheem, who was a famous cook of his times. "He (Raheem) started making Mutanjan in 1980, and since then made it on every Bakried to distribute to his dear ones. He used to make it and distribute it, without charging for it. It has become a tradition since then and we are following it," said Haji.
Speaking of the dedication needed to make the dish, Haji says: "Staying in 50 degrees of heat from the flames emerging from burning wood and coke is a big challenge." It took him two-and-a-half hours just to make the chashni and cook the meat.
An expert in making Mughal and Awadhi dishes, Haji said: "I have made it again after an entire year. The sweet and salty tastes impart a flavor of their own to the sweet dish."
A recipe that may soon be history
Chefs and food lovers say that mutanjan may soon be history if hotels and restaurants don't take a page from Haji's secret recipe book.
"Mutanjan contains all that one can imagine in a sweet dish. Maybe, even beyond that. Even then, not many people have ever heard about it," says Sonalika Azaad, an expert on desserts.
Some even confuse mutanjan with "meetha pulao" and "zarda", but zarda does not contain meat chunks.