Living abroad? These desi food recipes will make you feel right at home.

Byline: BISMA TIRMIZI

Make yourself delicious mutton korma and tahiri for some nostalgic feels.

Nostalgia is wonderful and a robust element of nostalgia is food, the very focus of this column.

Food builds bonds around people, creates memories that come rushing to our minds when our tastebuds find the same flavours and textures that we enjoyed earlier with friends, family or on a solo venture.

An immigrant dreams to go back home, to the far country, where the parents are alive and well, the childhood family home is bustling with activity and the aroma of freshly-cooked food emanates from the lively kitchen.

However, many from amongst us go back to a home where the parents are no more and the family kitchen is no more a hustle bustle of activity, the way we left it many years ago.

Yes, it wasn't frozen in time, but as I learnt on my two recent trips to Pakistan, if we are lucky and blessed enough to have a loving extended family in Pakistan, willing to shower us with tender loving care (i.e. home-made food), we feel fulfilled and loved, and leave Pakistan with the warmth that comes with visiting 'home'.

I am most happy to say that my sweet aunt cooked the most delicious food for me. Upon landing in Karachi, my siblings and I, with our respective spouses, were invited for a lavish meal of biryani, shami kebab and mutton qorma, accompanied by many other side dishes.

And the conversation around the table was as lively as it could have been. We chatted up a storm, feeling at home, because of the warmth of our wonderful hosts and the home-made feast they laid out for us.

The biryani at the table was of a unique kind. It was as elegant as pulao, and as delicious as the best biryani you've ever had. I will be sharing that recipe with you soon, as soon as I acquire it. Leaving the home of our hosts, and on returning to my family home, I felt fulfilled, appreciating the bonds that food enables to flourish.

The next few days that I was in Karachi, my dearest aunt sent me home-made food every day. The menu was impeccable, the cooking mother-perfect and the feeling indescribable - from tehrri to chicken curry, karrhi to qeema karalay, parathay to kebab. Degchis (pots) of hot food found its way to our house and, in the process, left me with the sweetest feeling of belonging.

We belong to our parents, country, siblings, family and friends because we break bread together. We feast together, and the mothers who cook for us (may they be ours or someone...