Nihari: The Overnight Stew Eaten for Breakfast

Nihari — from the Arabic word "nahar" (morning) — is Pakistan's national dish: beef or mutton shank slow-cooked for 6–8 hours (traditionally overnight) in a spice blend that includes cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, fennel, and a proprietary nihari masala, thickened with attan (roasted wheat flour) dissolved in the cooking liquid, and served at dawn as a hearty breakfast. The dish originates in the Mughal kitchens of Old Delhi, where it was prepared through the night for morning prayers. After Partition in 1947, nihari migrated to Pakistan with the Muslim population and became the defining dish of Lahore and Karachi. The bone marrow — spooned from the shank and stirred into the thick, brick-red gravy — is the prize.

• French pot-au-feu (bone-in meat simmered for hours, marrow served as the prize — same structure), Vietnamese phở (overnight bone broth — same long-extraction principle), Italian ossobuco (shank with m